464 General Notes [j,£j 



Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in the Boston Public Garden. — On May 18, 



1920, in the largest flight of migrant birds which has visited the Public 

 Garden this season, came a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea 

 caerulea). The bird, a male, all at once appeared in a moderate-sized 

 English elm at the Arlington Street side of the grounds near Beacon Street 

 before two fellow observers, Mrs. Calvert Cravy, Mr. Allan B. Craven, 

 and myself, and remained in view scarcely more than two minutes, taking 

 one other perch in a neighboring tree, and then being lost to our view. 

 As there were many observers in the Garden on this occasion, it being the 

 appointed morning for the visit of members of the Brookline Bird Club, 

 and this Gnatcatcher could not be found again by any of them, it is prob- 

 able that the two-minute period during which it was under observation by 

 us marked the entire length of its visit and that it passed out immediately 

 to other haunts. Only one other visit of the Gnatcatcher to the Garden 

 has been observed and recorded, 1 that of one on October 22, 1904, follow- 

 ing a southeast rainstorm with warm winds of almost gale force. On the 

 present occasion a southwesterly breeze during the preceding night warm- 

 ing up the day to a maximum temperature of 77° had brought in natural 

 sequence a flight of nearly sixty migrant birds to the Garden, of thirty-one 

 different species, including fifteen species of warblers. One other record, 2 

 intermediate in time with the two above given, was obtained in Olmsted 

 Park, lying between Boston and Brookline, on December 3, 1910, when 

 the Gnatcatcher was in companionship with an Orange-crowned Warbler. 

 The citation of dates of these three occurrences observed by me indicates 

 how accidental as to season, as well as visitant at all, is the Blue-gray 

 Gnatcatcher in the Boston Region.- — Horace W. Wright, 107 Pinckney 

 St., Boston, Mass. 



The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea caerulea) at 

 Quebec, P. Q. — About 2:15 p. m. (Eastern Standard Time) on May IS, 

 1920, I stood on the wooden walk which has been built just below the 

 southern wall of Quebec Citadel, three hundred feet above the St. Law- 

 rence River, at the top of the steep, rocky cliff which forms the southern 

 face of Cape Diamond. The surface of the declivity below me was partly 

 bare and partly covered by grass and dead weeds or scattering clumps 

 of bushes. There were no trees anywhere in the vicinity. Among the 

 bushes were many migrating birds, for the most pronounced wave of bird 

 migration of the spring of 1920 reached Quebec May 18. The preceding 

 night had been warm and hazy, with light, variable winds, and the day 

 itself was fine and quite summer-like, with an official maximum tempera- 

 ture at Quebec of 76° F. 



In a bush on the cliff a few feet below me I saw what at first glance 

 I took to be a Parula Warbler. I focused my binoculars (X3) on the 



i 'Auk,' XXII, Jan. 1905, pp. 87, 88. 



2 'Auk,' XXVIII, Jan. 1911, pp. 117, 118. 



