General Notes. 



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from Looney, Craig Co., Va., December iS, 1895, two of which were 

 shipped alive. Mr. J. B. Ruble, who secured the birds, writes the follow- 

 ing particulars concerning their capture : " Mr. John Myers, who lives 

 near the top of the mountain here, saw the Eagles feeding on a dead 

 sheep ; he set a trap and caught four of them from the one sheep. There 

 are more Eagles in this county than I ever saw before. Mr. John Looney 

 told me that about a week ago he saw thirteen in one flock, and there 

 have been eight or ten in all taken in Craig County this winter." In 

 answer to further inquiry Mr. Ruble writes that he considers that all the 

 Eagles were of the same kind. Gentlemen who have been going down 

 to Craig County for deer, for a number of years past, say that they never 

 heard of any Golden Eagles there before, and Dr. Rives, in his ' Birds of 

 the Virginias,' only gives a few records for this species. The occurrence 

 of the bird in such numbers therefore seems to be well worth recording. — 

 Witmer Stone, Acad. Nat. Set., Philadelphia, Pa. 



Nidification of the Dusky Horned Owl. — According to the few records 

 of the eggs of Bubo virginianus saturatus in Bendire's ' Life Histories 

 of North American Birds,' it appears that the eggs of this species are very 

 rare and that none have been obtained for many years. Capt. Bendire 

 records a set of two eggs that were taken by Kennicott in Alaska, April 

 16, 1862, and also another egg taken by H. Connelly in Labrador in 1863. 



I therefore have pleasure in recording a set of two eggs that were taken 

 recently. Although I have once or twice received eggs from the North 

 supposed to belong to this species, it was not until last season that I was 

 able to obtain the parent with the eggs. The nest was found by my col- 

 lector at Sandwich Bay, Labrador, April 17, 1895, and the label says: 

 ■" The nest was built in a spruce 15 feet from the ground, and made of twigs 

 and coarse grass." The female was shot as she left the nest and is an 

 exceptionally dark specimen. Both eggs with the parent are now in the 

 collection of R. S. Sharpies, Esq., of Elgin, 111. — W. Raine, Toronto, 

 Canada. 



Four Winter Records of the Short-eared Owl on the Massachusetts 

 Coast. — I have a female Short-eared Owl (Asio accipitrinus) in my collec- 

 tion which was taken at Orleans, near Chatham, Mass., on February 23, 

 1896, by Mr. Charles J. Paine, Jr. ; and I also know of a female (?) taken 

 at Ipswich, Mass., on December 31, 1895, by Mr. Ralph W. Gray; and 

 a male taken at the same locality by Mr George C. Shattuck on January 

 1, 1896; also a female taken at the same locality on February 12, 1S96, 

 by Mr. W. S. Townsend. 



I also know of a number of specimens taken at Middletown, near New- 

 port, R. I., in winter. — Reginald Heber Howe, Jr., Longxvood, Mass. 



The Roadrunner as a Rat-killer. — This forenoon (May 7, 1896), I came 

 suddenly upon a Roadrunner ( Gcococcyx California nits) that had just 



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