7 A 6 General Notes. [October 



I have no means of ascertaining how far north true M. formicivorus 

 ranges, but take the bird now in my possession to be our M. f. bairdi. 

 This evening I made a skin of this specimen, and in preparing it found 

 no difficulty in passing the skin of the neck over the skull. I also noted 

 that the epibranchials of the hyoid arches reached a point on the top of 

 the cranium at an imaginary line joining the posterior peripheries of the 

 outer borders of the orbits, in other words, no further forwards than the 

 parietal region at the vault of the skull. When I do make skins of birds 

 now-a-days, I have a habit of running a thread through a label giving full 

 data in regard to the specimen, then pass the needle through the body, 

 the eyes, and the back of the skull, all of which we have removed in making 

 the skin, tie the whole in a bunch, and throw with others into a jar of 

 fresh alcohol. It is a capital practice, saves excellent material, and was 

 resorted to in the present instance. — R. W. Shufeldt, Fort Wingate. 

 N. Mexico. 



Egg-laying extraordinary in Colaptes auratus. — On May 6th, 1883, I 

 found in a large willow tree, a hole containing two eggs of this bird; I 

 took one, leaving the other as a nest-egg, and continued to do this day 

 after day until she had laid seventy-one eggs. 



The bird rested two days, taking seventy-/ /trie days to lay seventy- 

 one eggs. I think this is something very unusual ; I have quite frequently 

 heard of from fifteen to twenty-eight being taken from one bird, but this 

 is a large number comparatively. I have the set complete, in my cabinet, 

 ami prize it very highly. 



This was published in a small journal called the Young Oologist', Vol. 

 I, No. 2, 1S84; but it being a rather obscure paper, and not reaching the 

 general public, I concluded to send it to 'The Auk' for publication. — 

 Charles L. Phillips, Taunton. Mass. 



The Range of Quiscalus major. — In the A. O. U. 'Check List' the hab- 

 itat of the Boat-tailed Crackle is given as the "coast region of the South 

 Atlantic and Gulf States, from North Carolina to Texas." The failure 

 to assign a more northern limit of range is evidently an oversight, 

 for the bird occurs as a regular inhabitant as far north at least as Cobb's 

 Island, Virginia, about twenty-five miles above Cape Charles, and breeds 

 in considerable numbers on certain of the marshy islands off the coast 

 above the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Robert Ridgway kindly 

 informs me that during his visit to this region in July, 1881, he saw 

 straggling flocks of this species almost daily, and killed several birds. 

 They were moulting and in very poor plumage, and none were preserved. 

 Mr. Ridgway further states that although he found no nests 'he has "no 

 doubt these birds were, or had been, breeding either in the marshes on 

 Cobb's Island or else on one of the neighboring islands." In July, 1SS4, 

 I noticed the birds occasionally on Cobb's Island and on several of the 

 islands adjacent thereto, and saw numbers of eggs that had been taken 

 earlier in the season, chiefly on a small sparsely-wooded island, by the 

 keeper of the U. S. Life Saving Station on Cobb's Island.— Hugh M. 

 Smith, Washington, D. C. 



