General Notes. 



411 



French, called my attention to a small bird, which was hopping about in 

 some driftwood at the edge of the water. Getting only a glimpse at it I 

 mistook it for a Yellow Warbler and was about to take up the oars again 

 when it came out in full view and I at once recognized an old friend which 

 I certainly never expected to see in Massachusetts, viz. : the Prothonotary 

 Warbler. It seemed perfectly at home, flitting from twig to twig, jetting 

 its tail, and occasionally chirping sharply. Once it sang in an undertone. 

 It was very tame, and as we sat watching it our boat drifted past within a 

 i^w yards without alainiing it. Finall\- I shot it. It proved to be an adult 

 male in high plumage. Its skin was well covered with fat, its .stomach 

 filled with insects, chiefly beetles. The weather was fine at the time, but 

 on the preceding day an easterly storm of some violence prevailed along 

 the Atlantic coast, from Cape Hatteras to New England. To this storm I 

 doubtless owe the pleasure of adding the Prothonotaiy Warbler to the 

 faima of our State, for my specimen is the first that has been i-eported 

 from Massachusetts, although the bird has occurred once previously in 

 Maine, and once in Rliode Island. — William Brewster, Cambridge, 

 ALiss. 



Helminthophila leuccbronchialis in New Jersey. — A specimen of this 

 hybrid was killed about ten miles from this place by Mr. Auguste Blanchet 

 in the latter pai't of May, 1859. The entire dorsal plumage is tinged with 

 greenish-yellow; the throat and cheeks are pure white, very lightly tinged 

 with yellowish ; upper breast grayish ; breast yellow, extending toward the 

 crissum; a small black line through the right eye, a large gravish patch 

 behind the left ; wing-bars yellow. The whole plumage resembles some- 

 what that of the female //. chrysoftera, but the grayish on the breast is 

 not so deep. — E. Carleton TurRBKR, Morristoivti, N. J. 



An Interesting Specimen of Helminthopila. — Mr. E. Carleton Thurber, 

 of MoiM-istown, New Jersey, lias kindly sent me for examination a Hchnhi- 

 fliopliila, which differs considerably from anvthing that has been hitherto 

 described, and which is apparently a hybrid between the hybrid H. laiv- 

 rr.iicei ?i\\A tlie typical H. pinus. It is most like the adult iriale H. pi'iius, 

 the wing- and tail-markings and general coloring, both above and beneath, 

 being essentially the same. But across the jugulum there is a Inroad band 

 of heavy black spots, and the black eye-stripe, short and well defined in 

 pi'niis. is in this- bird narrowed to a mere line anteriorh, and posteriorh- 

 extends to the auriculars, over a portion of which it spreads, forming a 

 dusky or blackish patch more or less broken or oxerlaid bv a plentiful 

 mixture of yellow. The black-spotted space on the jugulum is widest in 

 the middle, narrowing gradually as it approaches the sides. Its greatest 

 width is rather more than one-quarter of an inch. The spots are sub- 

 terminal, all the feathers being tipped, and many of them edged as well, 

 with the rich yellow of the underparts generally. This, of course, tends 

 to conceal the black, but it cannot be entirely concealed by any arrange- 

 ment of the featliLMS, antl when thev are disarrantjed ever so sliijhtlv it is a 



