VOl I9 o5 XI1 ] General Notes. 211 



A Female Cardinal Wintering in Concord, Mass. — Mrs. Russell Robb 

 of Concord gives me permission to record the presence of a female Car- 

 dinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) on her place on Punkatasset Hill. The bird 

 was first seen on the 28th of January, 1905, and on February 23 is still 

 about. During the winter months when the days were short the bird would 

 come to be fed at nine in the morning and early in the afternoon. Now 

 that the days are longer it comes by six a. m., and in the afternoon not 

 until four. 



This is the second female beside the one that bred in Cambridge, to be 

 noted in Massachusetts. — Reginald Heber Howe, Jr., Concord, Mass. 



Decrease of Purple Martinson Long Island, N. Y. — Seeing a note 

 on Purple Martins in Concord, Mass., a short time ago in 'The Auk,' I 

 thought the following might possibly be of some interest. Three sum- 

 mers ago, Purple Martins (Progne subis) were very common at Qiiogue, 

 L. I., and bred in boxes erected for their occupation. The summer of 

 1903 they had decreased in number, and last summer they had disappeared 

 apparently from the locality. I am afraid English Sparrows took posses- 

 sion of their boxes. 



The summer of 1903, I killed a Black-breasted Plover (Squatarola 

 squatarola) on July 1, as recorded in 'The Auk' (XXI, p. 79). Last sum- 

 mer I saw one on July 6, with a very black breast, but unfortunately 

 missed him. Snipe and Plover were exceedingly rare all last summer. — 

 F. W. Kobbe, Nezv York City. 



The Loggerhead Shrike in Connecticut in Winter. — I am indebted to 

 Mr. Wilbur F. Smith, of South Norwalk, Conn., for the opportunity of 

 recording the capture of a very dark-colored specimen of the Loggerhead 

 Shrike {Lanius ludovicianus) taken at South Norwalk, Conn., on Febru- 

 ary 17, 1905, and brought by him to me for identification. The bird was 

 found wounded by the roadside, and brought alive to Mr. Smith, but died 

 soon after being taken into the warm air of a house from a temperature of 

 nearly zero out of doors. This may have hastened the bird's death, 

 although it had lost one eye and the left half of the tail, and was found 

 on dissection to have received severe internal injuries. 



As there are several winter records for the Northern Loggerhead Shrike 

 (L. I. migrans) in southern and middle New England, the chief interest 

 in the present connection is the exceptionally dark coloration of the spec- 

 imen, which is very much darker even than the darkest Florida specimen 

 I have ever seen. The upper tail-coverts were nearly as dark as the back; 

 the lower parts were as dark gray as is the back in an average specimen 

 of ludovicianus from Florida or the Gulf States, while the upper parts 

 were many shades darker ; even the throat, lower tail-coverts, and the 

 tips of the rectrices were strongly grayish white instead of clear white, 

 as in ordinary specimens. The bird is thus strikingly darker than 

 migrans, being, as said above, darker than even very dark specimens of 



