38: 



General Notes. 



this vicinity November 10. 187s. These dates may serve to show that the 

 species is a pretty early spring- and a late tall-migrant. In regard to its 

 habits I can only repeat what others have said again and again, namely 

 that it is a great hider. My attention was called to the bird by a low call 

 not unlike the characteristic chirp of the Song Sparrow, but peculiarly 

 sharp and shrill. Going for the bird, it darted out from one bush into 

 another, a distance of about ten yards. I saw it alight in the middle of the 

 bush on the ground and determined to watch the little stranger. I kept 

 my eyes fixed on him for fully ten minutes, but he remained motion- 

 less and silent, and his patience seemed unimpaired when mine was all 

 gone. 



The capture of Dendrceca kirtlandi, male, May 8, 1885, is worthy of 

 special mention, as it is the first record of its occurrence west of the Miss- 

 issippi River. It may also be new to learn that this Warbler is in its gen- 

 eral ways mostly like D. palmarum. It flew up from the ground on the 

 River des Pires, a few yards from the water, and alighted behind a bush a 

 few feet from the ground. One glance at the bird was sufficient to tell me 

 that it was a Kirtland's Warbler; such a peculiar looking bird it is. Con- 

 cealing myself I watched the bird for a few minutes, and found that its 

 habits seem to be terrestrial, that it has the same wagging motion of the 

 tail as the Yellow Redpole, but that in the carriage of its body and in the 

 manner of evading discovery by skilfully alighting behind a protecting 

 object it resembles Oporornis. — Otto Wiomann. St. Louis, Mo. 



On the Feeding Habits of Phalaenoptilus nuttalli. — Just without the 

 picket fence that encloses in part the parking of my present residence at 

 Fort Wingate, New Mexico, then runs a wide board-walk. Beyond this 

 is a broad, well-kept gravel road, standing between the former and an 

 open level plot of ground of about an acre's extent. For a number of 

 evenings past my neighbors have tried to induce me to come out and see 

 a strange-acting bird that disported itself in this roadway, between twi- 

 light and dark. I paid little heed to this, as from its description 1 believed 

 it to be the half-grown young of the Chordediles of this region, 

 which is very abundant in the neighborhood. Last night, however, the 

 bird having been described to me as a small Owl with a white throat, by 

 one of its observers, I took my cane-gun and made a search for it up and 

 down the road-way. I had not far to go, when, as well as I could see by 

 the light of a very young moon, I noticed a small, dark-brownish looking 

 bird apparently amusing himself by making short jumps of two feet or 

 more up in the air, then resting on the road to repeat the performance in 

 a moment or so. Another was going through similar capers on the broad 

 walk. They seemed to be perfectly oblivious to my presence, and, indeed, 

 some children further along were trying to catch them with their hands. 

 As I had never heard the note of the Poor-wills in the vicinity, it did not 

 strike me at first that it might be this bird ; moreover, its action was so 

 odd that I hardly knew what to make of it. At any rate one soon noise- 

 lessly lit, like a great, gray moth, directly in front of me in the road, but 

 a few feet distant. It was extremely difficult to see him, and it was more 



