Vol 'i9^ XY ] Oberholser, Notes on N. A. Birds. V. 185 



Early in August, 1917, Mr. John Hair, gamekeeper of Mr. R. T. Crane at 

 Ipswich, missed six of a four days old brood of Bob-whites. He had seen 

 a Kingfisher nearby and later the same day saw it perched on the gable end 

 of the little house where the Bob-whites had been hatched, and from there 

 pounce on the young birds as they ran in and out. He shot the Kingfisher, 

 and, on opening the bird, a female, found the legs and feathers of the young 

 Bob-whites in its crop. 



Most authors state that the Kingfisher is exclusively a fish eater. Knight, 

 ' Birds of Maine ', 1908, p. 270, says Kingfishers feed on " grasshoppers, 

 also crickets, butterflies and moths, which latter two I have seen the birds 

 take while on the wing, chasing them until they are caught." Weed and 

 Dearborn, ' Birds in their Relations to Man,' 1903, p. 192, say: " The food 

 consists principally of fish, but occasionally mice, frogs or grasshoppers 

 are captured." I have been unable to find in literature any record of the 

 capture of birds by Kingfishers. 



NOTES ON NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 

 V. 



BY HARRY C. OBERHOLSER. 



The notes below presented l concern the status of four North 

 American birds. These are, respectively, members of the families 

 Btdeonidce, Regulidoe, and Fringillidce. 



. Astur atricapillus (Wilson). 



Dr. Ernst Hartert has recently 2 included the North American 

 Goshawk, Accipiter atricapillus Wilson, among the subspecies of 

 the European Goshawk, Astur palumbarius (Linnaeus), or, as he 

 calls it, Accipiter gentilis (Linnaeus). Examination of a series of 



'For previous papers in this series, cf. 'The Auk,' XXXIV, April, 1917, pp. 191-196; 

 XXXIV, July, 1917, pp. 321-329; XXXIV, October, 1917, pp. 465-470; and XXXV, 

 January, 1918, pp. 62-65. 



J Vogel palaarkt. Fauna, Heft IX (Band II, Heft 3), October, 1914, p. 1146. 



