288 General Notes. [jgjj, 



will do well to consult the pages of 'The Wilson Bulletin' before rushing 

 into print.— W. F. Henninger, New Bremen, Ohio. 



The American and European Widgeons in Massachusetts. — In 



'The Auk' for April, 1911, in writing of ten years' observations on mi- 

 grating ducks at Wenham Lake, Mass., I reported four occurrences of 

 the European Widgeon (Mareca penelope) and suggested that this species 

 is probably more common than is usually supposed. 



Those records ended with the year 1909, and since then I have accurate 

 notes for nine additional years at the same place, a series of nineteen years 

 in all. In 1911 no shooting was done and no records kept. 



During those nine years seven more specimens of M. penelope have been 

 taken among only seven specimens of M. americana, as follows: 



1910 — M. americana, 1. 



1912 — M. americana, 3; M. penelope, 1, on October 24. 



1913— No Widgeon taken. 



1914 — M. americana, 0; M. penelope, 2, on November 21. 



1915 — No Widgeon taken. 



1916 — M. americana, 3; M. penelope, 4, October 20 and November 2. 



1917— No Widgeon taken. 



1918 — No Widgeon taken. 



1919 — No Widgeon taken. 



Total for the nine years — M. americana, 7; M . penelope, 7. 



Total for 19 years — M . americana, 59; M . penelope, 11. 



All specimens of the European species were in female plumage and 

 showed both the typical rusty coloring of the head and the dark gray 

 axillaries. It is very likely that some specimens of M. penelope were 

 classed as M. americana in the early years of shooting at Wenham, before 

 the diagnostic value of the axillars was learned. 



On November 14, 1919, I noted one specimen of M. penelope hanging 

 up in a duck blind on the south shore of Great Bay in the town of Green- 

 land, N. H., not far north of the Massachusetts state line. This bird 

 was also in female or in immature plumage. I was told that a small flock 

 of twenty or thirty Widgeon had been feeding in Great Bay for several 

 days, but this was the only one that had been shot. At Squibnocket 

 Pond, Chilmark, Mass., which is situated at the southwest corner of 

 Martha's Vineyard Island, out of 120 Widgeon taken between October 22 

 and December 10, 1919, one fine male of M. penelope was shot Novem- 

 ber 6. I examined all these Widgeon very carefully myself. 



On December 8, 1919, I watched another full plumaged male M. pene- 

 lope through a glass at close range, among a raft of many hundred Widgeon 

 and Red-heads at Squibnocket. 



It certainly seems that among the rare straggling Widgeon which appear 

 irregularly east of Boston, at Wenham, M. penelope is at least relatively 

 more abundant than among the Martha's Vineyard birds. Can it be 



