276 



General Notes. \j\u\ 



left the ship of her own accord, she always immediately fell behind, and 

 seemed to experience great difficulty in regaining it. 



Each time she left the ship she seemed to have harder work to get 

 back, and at last, when, after a rest of nearly twenty minutes in the 

 shelter of a heap of sail, she once more darted astern, she seemed to find 

 her strength failing, and made a desperate attempt to reach the ship 

 again. After struggling for some minutes, flying with a weak heavy 

 flight, totally different from that of the day before, and all the time los- 

 ing ground, she finally disappeared in the fog, and we never saw her 

 again. 



This was at about ten in the morning of April 20, off northern 

 Virginia. — Gerald H. Thayer, Scarborough, N. 1'. 



Pinicola enucleator canadensis and Tryngites subruficollis in Illinois. 

 — It is seldom, indeed, that Illinois is favored with a visit from the Pine 

 Grosbeak, there being to my knowledge only one previous published 

 record of its occurrence in the State. Mr. Harrison Kennicott (who by 

 the way is a nephew of Mr. Robert Kennicott, whose name is a familiar 

 one among ornithologists) informs me by letter, in which he kindly 

 gives me permission to publish this note, that on the 15th of February, 

 while he was out shooting rabbits in the woods near 'The Grove,' Cook 

 County, he came across an unfamiliar bird among a flock of Juncos, 

 which at first sight resembled a Shrike in form. His first shot brought 

 it down and after careful study of Nuttall's ' Manual ' he identified it as 

 a young male Pine Grosbeak. He laid it aside to send in for farther 

 comparison but unfortunately the favorite family cat got hold of it and 

 destroyed it completely, eating everything, even to the head and wings. 

 I believe this may be looked upon as a straggling southern record directly 

 attributable to the exceedingly cold wave which prevailed at that time, 

 being the coldest weather, with a single exception, in the history of the 

 State. 



A bird which is perhaps almost as infrequently met with by the 

 ornithologists of the State as the foregoing one is the Buff-breasted 

 Sandpiper ( Tryngites subruficollis). It was on Sept. 18, 1S98, that a head 

 was handed me, then in a macerated condition, which I was able to 

 identify at once as that of T. subruficollis. Mr. Chas. Bandler while out 

 shooting 'Plover the day previous had come on a pot hunter who was 

 roasting his game, consisting of the specimen here recorded and another 

 one (which was mutilated beyond positive recognition, but which was 

 believed to be the same), in his campfire and muttering because of his 

 poor luck. The head, which was all that was available, Mr. Brandler 

 picked up and it is now in the Field Columbian Museum collection, 

 recorded as from Calumet Lake, Cook County, Illinois. — Wm, Alaxson 

 Bryan, Chicago, III. 



Ammodramus nelsoni in Iowa. — I am unable to find any record of 

 the occurrence of this species in our State and it gives me pleasure to 



