''°\^o":'''] General Notes. 395 



vicinity, as my companion above the cliffs did not see it at all, though I 

 called to him to watch if it came above. 



I then moved mv ladder a little closer and went down farther so that my 

 face was about a foot and a half from the egg which the Swift had just 

 left. It was placed on a shelf or crevice in the lower edge of a projection 

 standing out perhaps four or five feet from the main wall and about ninety 

 feet from the breakers below. This crevice was four or five inches high, 

 five or six inches deep, and about twenty inches long, very narrow at one 

 end, and about thirty feet from the top of the cliff, twenty feet of which is 

 earth sloping back to the le\el land above. This portion of the cliff was 

 wet and dripping constantly, causing tufts of grass to grow hei"e and there, 

 where there was earth enough to support the roots. It was just behind 

 one of these tufts of grass, in a slight depression in the mud, formed no 

 doubt by the bird, that the ^^^ was laid. I did not disturb the Q^-g or 

 nest, not going nearer than a foot and a half, intending to return a week 

 later to get possibly a full set, which I did, but found things just as I had 

 left them a week before and no Swifts were in sight. I took the egg, and 

 peeled off" the nest, grass and all, and have it in my collection. 



I have since concluded that the set was complete, as when preparing the 

 &%% I found that incubation was advanced about two or three days. An- 

 other reason for believing that the bird had laid her complement of eggs 

 and was sitting, was the fact of her being so difficult to fiush, as all birds 

 sit closer as incubation advances. — A. G. Vrooman, Santa Cruz, Cal. 



A Rare Record for Eastern New York. — On August 29, 1901, I took a 

 fine specimen of the Olive-sided Flycatcher {Cofitopus borealis) on Shelter 

 Island, N. Y. It was a female in young-of-the-year plumage, shot from a 

 tall dead tree in a woodland clearing. This bird must have been reared 

 not far from this locality, as it is not likely it had wandered far at this 

 early date. It is the first specimen of the species I ever saw living, and a 

 rare i-ecord for Long Island. — W. W. Worthington, Shelter Island 

 Heights, N. Y. 



Acanthis linaria rostrata in the Outer Hebrides. — The occurrence 

 of a third example of the so-called Mealy Redpoll in the Island of 

 Barra, one of the Outer Hebrides, led me to request my friend, Mr. W. L. 

 McGillivrav — a nephew of the late distinguished ornithologist, and a 

 gentleman much interested in birds — to allow me to examine this and the 

 other specimens of this bird in his possession with a view to ascertaining 

 to what species or subspecies of Acanthis the birds obtained in this far 

 western island belonged. I was much interested to find that all three ex- 

 amples were referable to the form described by Dr. Stejneger ( Auk, I, 

 p. 153) as Acanthis linaria rostrata (Coues) — a bird which has not hitherto 

 been recorded for Great Britain, though several specimens have been ob- 

 tained on islands off the west coast of Ireland. 



