76 



Ge7ieral Notes. \_^^^_ 



A Supposed New Colony of Least Terns on Marthas Vineyard. — In 

 July, 1901, while on a visit to Katama Bay and the eastern end of Marthas 

 Vineyard with a collecting party from the U. S. Fish Commission Station 

 at Woods Hole, I found a young Least Tern (Sferna antillarti^n) running 

 on the shore near a marshy strip on the edge of the hay. An inspection 

 of the marsh showed it to be a breeding place for this species, as a number 

 of eggs were observed in a hasty examination, although it appeared that 

 most of the eggs must have hatched. Several adults came within close 

 range of the collecting party seining on the shore. On each of several 

 other visits to the bay in July, August and September, a few Least Terns 

 were noticed, but it was not until about the first of October that the birds 

 were observed in tlocks and some idea could be formed of their number. 

 Two separate flocks were found on the beach one day, and it was the esti- 

 mate of Mr. V. N. Edwards, of the Fish Commission, and myself that each 

 flock contained about 500 old and young birds. 



I have been visiting Katama Bay in summer and fall for three or four 

 years, and have not previously observed Least Terns there. Mr. Edwards, 

 who has been very familiar with the region for more than thirty years and 

 knows the birds very intimately, does not remember to have found the 

 birds in such numbers before. — Hugh M. Smith, Washington., D. C. 



The European Widgeon in North Carolina. — I found not long ago in 

 the collection of Mr. Louis Agassiz Shaw (No. loi) of Chestnut Hill, 

 Mass., a male Mareca penelope taken by Mr. L. C Fenno on Currituck 

 Sound, on November 23, 1900. The bird is a fine, Avell stuffed specimen, 

 and is I think the first to be recorded from the State. It will eventually 

 be presented to the Museum of Compai-ative Zoology. — Reginald Heber 

 Howe, Jr., Loiigxvood, Mass. 



Northern Phalarope and Black Tern at Cumberland, Md. — On May 

 23, 1901, a friend brought me, beside Sora Rail, Bartramian Sandpiper and 

 Solitary Sandpiper, a fine male specimen of Phalaropus lobatus. He had 

 seen a pair of these birds on a large meadow along the West Virginia 

 bank of the Potomac, and shot one. At this place, called Swamp Ponds, 

 the Potomac makes a rather short bend into Maryland from west to east, 

 so that this locality in West .Virginia is surrounded on three sides by 

 Maryland, so that any bird found there must be counted for Maryland as 

 well as West Virginia, for whether birds have come from north or south 

 to these Swamp Ponds, they had to come from Maryland. 



On May 30, while with a friend at the same place, we saw a strange 

 bird, large in appearance, majestically sailing in wide circles over the 

 swamp, often over the river into Maryland, but always returning. Some- 

 times it would interrupt its slow circles by seemingly strange antics. 

 After much waiting it sat down on a post in the swamp. My friend care- 

 fully stalked up to it and took it, and it proved to be a female Black Tern 

 {Hydrochelidou nigra sHri>iamensis). There was, however, no sign of eggs 



