488 



General Notes. [October 



bier taken May 9, 1S86, I had no idea that I should ever shoot another in 

 Massachusetts. During the following August, however, I took two more in 

 Concord, one August 17, on the banks of the main river about a mile below 

 the town, the other August 23. on the Assabet, within fifty yards of the 

 spot where the first (May) speciyien was obtained. The first of these 

 August birds was a young female, the second an adult male; both had 

 completed the summer moult and perfected the autumnal plumage. I saw 

 and fully identified each on the day before it was shot, Mr. Purdie being 

 with me on one occasion (Aug. 22) as well as examining the freshly-killed 

 specimen next daj'. 



Both birds were restless and rather shy, flitting from place to place, 

 frequently crossing and recrossing the narrow stream. For the most part 

 they kept well up in the trees, seeming to prefer the denser foliaged ones, 

 especially the swamp oaks (^^uercus bicolor) among the broad, dark leaves 

 of which they concealed themselves so successfully that I had the greatest 

 difficulty in getting even a glimpse at them. Thej' seemed perfectly at 

 home in their strange surroundings, as indeed they might well be, for 

 both the Concord and Assabet Rivers, with their densely-wooded banks 

 and half-submerged thickets of black willows and button bushes, afford 

 plenty of just such places as the Prothonotary delights in at the South and 

 West. 



Viewed in the light of this later experience the status of the Prothono- 

 tary Warbler as a Massachusetts bird presents an interesting problem. 

 The May specimen, considered apart, might be consistently treated as a 

 chance straggler from the South, especially as it occured just after a storm 

 which prevailed along our entire eastern coast; but the appearance of two 

 others, one of them a young bird, in the same locality, at the height of the 

 return migration, seems to indicate that during 1SS6, at least, there has 

 been a regular, if limited, fliglit into and from New England, and that the 

 species has actuallj- bred either within or to the northward of this region. 

 That such a visitation is of annual recurrence is more doubtful, but it is 

 certainly not impossible, especially when we consider that the Prothono- 

 tary is a bird of peculiar habits and tastes, and that the haunts Avhich it 

 loves are, in this region, neither numerous nor often visited by collectors. 

 — William Brewster, Cambridge, A/ass. 



An Earlier Occurrence of the Prothonotary Warbler in Massachusetts. 



— In the last issue of 'The Auk' my friend Mr. Brewster, announces his 

 taking a Protouotaria citrea in Concord, very properly considering it the 

 first for the State, and I am aware that he will in the October number 

 record his capture of two more in the same town, one of which I had the 

 great pleasure of seeing alive as well as afterwards handling in the flesh. 

 Let me note a fourth specimen that I ha\e seen in the possession of Mr. 

 George Dwelley. He assures me that he shot the bird, a male, from the 

 foliage overhanging a creek, it falling into the water. This was in 

 spring, several years ago, but not pi-e\ious to 18S0. in the town of South 

 Abington. Plymouth County. — II. A. Purdie, Boston, Mass. 



