T^gO General Notes. \a^y 



bridge. They staid until the ice began to leave the bay, objects of great 

 curiosity to hundreds of pei'sons who went there for the purpose of 

 seeing so unusual a sight. — W. H. Brownsox, Portland^ Me. 



Phyllopseustes versus Phylloscopus. — In a recent connection (Hand 

 List Gen. and Spec. Birds, IV, 1903, p. 358), Dr. Sharpe very properly 

 calls attention to the fact that Phyllopseustes is untenable as the generic 

 name of the group of willow (or leaf) warblers to which it has been more 

 or less frequently applied. The proper designation is Phylloscopus Boie 

 (Isis, 1826, p. 972), as Dr. Sharpe has shown {loc. ci't.), for in both the 

 supposed earlier references to Phyllopseustes, or Phyllopscnste (Meyer, 

 Vog. Liv. u. Esthlands, 1815, p. 122; ibid..^ Taschenb. Deutsch. Vogel, 

 III, 1822, p. 95), the name is employed not in a generic sense but as a 

 plural group heading, and is spelled '"'■ Phyllopseustes,'''' The generic name 

 Phyllopseustes, however, has for long stood in the American Ornitholo- 

 gists' Union Check-List ; and the present writer, in suggesting to Dr. 

 Sharpe the propriety of using this name in place of Phylloscopus, did so 

 without considering the necessity of verifying the original reference, but 

 relying upon the presumed correctness of the Check-List. Now, how- 

 ever, the ghost of Phyllopseustes having been finally laid, Phylloscopus 

 may rest undismayed in possession of its own. 



The only willow warbler occurring in North America — Phyllopseustes 

 borealis (Blasius) of the A. O. U. Check-List (1895, p. 313) — is, as many 

 authors have contended, generically different from Phylloscopus, and 

 should be called Acanthopneuste borealis (Blasius). — Harry C. Ober- 

 HOLSER, Washington, D. C. 



Peculiar Nesting-site of the Bluebird in the Bermudas. — On June 28, 

 1903, I found a Bluebird (Sialia sialis) at Hungary Bay in Bermuda. 

 Unlike any that I had ever seen, it was built of grass and weeds, rather 

 bulky, and placed on the branch of a cedar tree about fifteen feet from 

 the ground, and several feet out from the trunk of the tree. It contained 

 one fresh egg which undoubtedly belonged to a second set. Both birds 

 were present and showed considerable anxiety when I looked at the nest. 



All the Bluebirds in Bermuda do not build nests in this manner, for I 

 saw one which was discovered by Mr. A. H. Clark in the capstan of an 

 old wreck (that was about July 10, and the nest contained three nearly 

 fledged young). 



Major Wedderburn in Jones's ' Naturalist in Bermuda ' states that the 

 Yellow-bellied Woodpecker (Sphyrapicus varius) bred in Bermuda 

 occasionally and that many palmetto trees were bored by them, but I saw 

 no woodpecker holes, and there were very few palmettos in the neighbor- 

 hood of the nest at Hungary Bay. The lack, or scarcity of woodpecker 

 holes is probably what induced the birds to build a nest placed on a 

 branch of the only common tree. 



I have looked up the nesting habits of the Bluebird in a number of 



