116 General Notes. [* a u n k 



for food and the parent bird after finding a hairy worm would slap it about 

 until it was shorn of its spines when it would thrust it down the yawning 

 maw of the young beggar apparently without appeasing its hunger in the 

 least as it would immediately demand more. The two were wandering 

 about in short second growth saplings and I had ample opportunity to 

 watch them without the aid of my glasses for some little time as they were 

 within easy vision. There was no possible question of their identity. Has 

 any one a later date for the nesting of this well-known bird? — Etta S. 

 Wilson Detroit, Mich. 



Local Decrease of Warblers in 1917. — In the spring of 1917 very wet 

 weather with cold spells prevailed through the western peninsula of On- 

 tario and a good deal of the country to the north of it, the result being that 

 many of the small birds failed to raise the usual number of young, and when 

 the time for the autumn migrations arrived the birds usually seen in large 

 numbers did not appear, or were in such small numbers as to be negligible. 



Opposite my house in the city of London lies a small park of about three 

 acres planted with the usual variety of shade trees, and in that park it is 

 a usual thing to see in the autumn migrations quite large numbers of 

 warblers and the species that usually associate with them, but in the 

 autumn of 1917, the total number of warblers seen by all the observers who 

 frequent the park, was not half a dozen, while in previous years it was a 

 frequent thing to find half a dozen species in the course of a fifteen minutes' 

 hunt. 



So far as I could learn conditions throughout the western peninsula of 

 Ontario were nearly uniform. At Point Pelee warblers were in extremely 

 small numbers and every observer with whom I spoke or corresponded 

 remarked on the great scarcity of these birds in that season. Fortunately, 

 this state of affairs does not seem to have been universal and from many 

 parts of the continent come different reports. The present breeding of 

 1918 was not altogether favorable and the number of migrating birds up 

 to the time of writing (September 13), is small though there are more than 

 were noted the prevous year. — W. E. Saunders, London. Out. 



The Name " erythrogaster/' and Others. — A nomenclatural, or rather 

 etymological, question has recently been raised which illustrates how great 

 a tempest in a teapot may be stirred up over a point already settled by 

 existing rules of nomenclature, and a brief statement of the case seems 

 desirable. 



In a paper on " The Birds of the Anamba Islands " (U. S. Nat. Mus. 

 Bull. 98, p. 31, 1917) Dr. H. C. Oberholser designates the American Barn 

 Swallow as Hirundo m&iica erythrogastris, explaining in a foot-note that 

 " the subspecific term erythrogaster as here used is a Latin adjective of the 

 third declension and therefore has for its proper feminine nominative 

 erythrogastris, not erythrogastra as commonly written." 



