Vol. XXII-I General Notes. 207 



1905 J ' 



four Golden-eyes; he says," . . . .found from ten to twelve, which is an 

 unusual number for this place, as the shore is very open, and ducks very 

 seldom stop here." 



At Newmarket, thirty-four miles north of Toronto, and about the same 

 distance south of Lake Simcoe, some ducks were found on the roadside. 

 At Ayr, sixty-eight miles southwest of Toronto and about thirty-five 

 north of Lake Erie, Mr. W. H. Stockton noticed three Cowheens, in Feb- 

 ruary, dead on the ice beside open water in different small streams. At 

 Forest, twenty-three miles east of Saima (at the south end of Lake Huron) 

 and about fifteen from the lake shore, Mr. Montague Smith found, on 

 March 10, a Cowheen dead on a wood pile in the bush. At Exeter, about 

 the same distance from Lake Huron and some miles further north, Mr. 

 William Sweet saw one Cowheen found alive in a barnyard, and one 

 picked up dead in a field ; he also saw one on the snow, but it flew away 

 when approached ; a Grebe was found alive in some woods. At Depot 

 Harbor, on the Georgian Bay, Mr. J. Kirkwood noticed, about the middle 

 of February, considerable numbers of ducks flying in from the bay and 

 dropping exhausted on the shore, where most of them died. At Beau- 

 mauris, on Lake Muskoka (about thirty miles east of the Georgian Bay), 

 Cowheens were reported by Mr. P. A. Taverner as having been found 

 there early in March in an exhausted condition. 



The second week of February was marked by a sudden fall of the tem- 

 perature in Ontario, and ice formed with great rapidity over a much 

 greater area of water than is usual on the lakes, covering the regular feed- 

 ing grounds, and leaving no open places, as in the case of a slow freeze- 

 up. The ducks finding the regular feeding grounds covered by ice, and 

 being unable to obtain food in the open lake, apparently made a hurried 

 exit with no particular objective except to get away from the Great Lakes ; 

 while this seems the most apparent explanation, other reasons connected 

 with the food supplv may be possible. A record of the mean temperature 

 at Toronto as given in the meteorological reports from the 7th to the 15th of 

 February show how sudden was the fall of temperature. The mean 

 daily temperature, Fahrenheit, for February 7 to 15, inclusive, was as 

 follows : 



James H. Fleming, Toronto, Canada. 



The Gadwall and Yellow Rail near Springfield, Mass. — Chaulelasmus 

 streperus. A Gadwall was taken October 14, 1904, in Glastonbury, Conn., 

 thirty miles below Springfield. Individuals of this species appear in the 

 Connecticut Valley only in very rare instances. 



