A02 General Notes. \^. 



Later that same afternoon, at Dublin, near Monadnock's northern base, 

 m_v sister saw some crows persecuting a larger bird, which looked to her 

 somewhat like a hawk, but was entirely black. Probably this was my 

 raven again. Where this raven came from no one can say, but it is cer- 

 tain that he had wandered far, and must wander far again to find country 

 in which he could feel at home. 



Strangely enough, he looked like a young bird, in the almost brownish 

 dullness and sheenlessness of his plumage. But it is scarcely possible 

 that he was a bird of the year, considering the date — July 4. 



Almost every summer I find Yellow-bellied Flj'catchers — one pair at 

 least — breeding in a forest swamp close under the northern base of 

 Monadnock, at an altitude of about 1400 feet. I found them first about 

 six years ago, and my most recent records are 1902 and 1903 (June and 

 July). This year (1904) I have n't looked for them. The morass in which 

 they live extends over fifty or more acres, and is atypical north New 

 England forest bog, wet and cool and mossy; full of sphagnum, pitcher- 

 plants, creeping snowberry {C/iiogenes), etc. The trees, mainly water- 

 stunted spruces and balsams, are bearded heavily with usnea moss, in 

 which many Northern Parula Warblers build their nests. All the more 

 boreal warblers of the region breed here in unusual abundance, and 

 among them are always one or two pairs of Northern Water-Thrushes. 



I believe this is the only positive breeding record for the Yellow- 

 bellied Flycatcher south of the White Mountains, and it is possible that 

 the bird does not summer anywhere in the intervening ninety or a hun- 

 dred miles. Monadnock is to a noteworthy extent a Canadian or semi- 

 Hudsonian zone ' island.' But there is a narrow ribbon of very similar 

 country straggling northward from it, as is proved by the distribution 

 of certain birds. The Olive-backed Thrush, for instance, which nests 

 commonly in the spruce woods high up on the mountain, occurs also, as 

 a less common summer resident, at its northern base, and at various fur- 

 ther points directly northward. The valley-ward extension of this thrush's 

 breeding range here actually overlaps the upward extension of the Wood 

 Thrush, though these species are both rare at their line of meeting, and 

 are probably never to be found actually together, since the Olive-backed 

 sticks to conifers and the Wood Thrush favors deciduous groves. 



Birds representing the Hudsonian and birds representing the Carolin- 

 ian border of the Transition zone breed at almost the same altitude 

 within the limits of a single town (Dublin) at the north side of Monad- 

 nock. For the Hudsonian member we have the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 

 (perhaps as fair a case as Bicknell's Thrush, which Massachusetts bird 

 men delight to call Hudsonian), and for the Carolinio-transitional Hens- 

 low's Sparrow and the Short-billed Marsh Wren. The sparrow is very 

 rare in Dublin, though common in the lower and more alluvial meadows 

 eight miles to the northeast (Hancock and Bennington). Mr. Hoffmann 

 finds it a rare breeder in the Alstead Hills, about twenty miles northwest 

 of Dublin. There also, both he and I have found the Yellow winged 

 Sparrow breeding. 



