VoL i™ H ] General Notes. 231 



Howe and Allen in their ' Birds of Massachusetts' say: Blackburnian 

 Warbler: "Martha's Vineyard: 'Transient. Rare.'" Bay-breasted: 

 " Martha's Vineyard: ' Transient.' " 



When at my summer place at Oak Bluffs, M. V., which is located in an 

 oak grove, I am usually alert for birds, it being a favorable place for ob- 

 servation. About 10 A. M., May 21, 1905, a most delightful morning, I 

 heard a warbler's song with which I was unfamiliar. Upon investigating 

 I discovered a pair of Blackburnian Warblers ( Dendroica fusca) in the 

 lower branches of an oak, 15 feet from cottage. They were beautiful, 

 gracef ul birds ; flitting from branch to branch, catching insects, singing now 

 and then; spreading their tails, showing their white webs and their black 

 and white and orange parts showing to perfection. I had a near view of 

 the handsome male and his slightly plainer mate, both being in then- 

 faultless nuptial dress. I had waited years for this sight and enjoyed it 

 thoroughly. 



September 12, 1914, while exploring the pine barrens near East Chop, 

 Martha's Vineyard, where the Grasshopper Sparrow and the Heath Hen 

 sometimes occur, I encountered a flock of probably 125 migrating sparrows 

 and warblers. I examined several of the latter which proved to be Black- 

 polls, and then a warbler attracted my attention which had an unusually 

 deep yellow breast. I at first thought it one of the comparatively highly 

 colored, fall Pine Warblers. I quickly lost sight of this bird and searched 

 for another, which I soon found, and by its chestnut flanks and white tail 

 patches I recognized the Bay-breasted Warbler (Dendroica castanea). 

 There were surely two in the mixed flock and doubtless more. — Charles 

 L. Phillips, Taunton, Mass. 



The Cape May Warbler (Dendroica tigrina) as an Abundant 

 Autumnal Migrant and as a Destructive Grape Juice Consumer 

 at Berwyn, Pa. — For several years, previous to the crushing sleet of the 

 past winter, a pie cherry tree crowned with the foliage of a fugitive Clinton 

 grapevine overhung my shop platform; and a thirty foot pine bending 

 under the weight of several Niagara grapevine runners, stood close to my 

 bedroom window. These vines remained unpruned principally because 

 the fruit served as a capital lure for many migrating birds in just the places 

 most convenient for observation. 



From the cherry tree I secured an adult female Cape May Warbler on 

 September 25, 1909, a notable capture at that time since it was my first 

 fall record. 



From the same tree, on September 12, 1913, I took a specimen each of 

 the Cape May and Tennessee Warblers, and on the 14th and 15th observed 

 twenty and thirty adult and immature female Cape Mays on the pine tree. 

 These birds were almost constantly on the move, darting after one another, 

 only now and then pausing an instant to gather some minute insect from 

 leaf or fruit, especially about the grape bunches; and six shots failed to 

 drive the survivors from the tree. By the 19th, the number diminished to 



