206 General Notes. [.April 



should have bright warning colors, yet is of a uniform and inconspicuous 

 brownish yellow. According to hypothesis, furthermore, birds are sup- 

 posed to learn about disagreeable insects when young and thus be trained 

 when adult to ignore them. In this case, however, experiment is usually 

 followed by death, so that experience is not conserved. What is more, the 

 insect is not dangerous to adult birds, so that, adopting this style of argu- 

 ment for the moment, early bad experience proliably would l)e overcome 

 by later satisfactory trials. 



We do not know whether eating rose chafers has a bad effect upon the 

 young of wild birds, but we do know that the adults of a number of species 

 feed upon these insects. So far, rose-beetles have been found in stomachs 

 of 12 wild species. The Kingbird seems especially fond of them, from 12 to 

 40 rose-chafers being found in each of several collected stomachs. 



The case is analogous to that of numerous birds feeding extensively upon 

 the fruits of poison sumacs. A known poisonous principle, which at first 

 thought we should be inclined to consider a preventive against eating by 

 wild animals, is proved by the ol:)served facts to have no such effect. Other 

 analogies are by no means rare, and it would seem that if carefullj' pondered, 

 they would .serve to check the enthusiasm with which anthropomorphic 

 explanations of animal behavior are advanced. — W. L. McAtee, Washing- 

 ton, D. C. 



A Fossil Feather from Taubate. — Fossil lairds are rare enough wluni 

 we come to consider how very few of them have fallen into the hands of 

 sciience, as compared with the great (quantity of material we have repre- 

 senting the fossil forms of other Vertebrata; and, as to fossil feathers, they 

 are many times rarer than those of the birds themselves. Without in- 

 viting special attention to the literature on this subject — for numerous 

 authors have contributed to it, myself among the number — I would say 

 that the specimen here to be described was kindly sent me for that purpose 

 by Herr Director Dr. von Ihering, of the Museu Paulista, Sao Paulo, 

 Brazil; it came by registered mail, the letter of transmittal being dated 

 January 8, 1915. 



The locality where this specimen was found has yielded many fine fish 

 fossils, which have been described by Dr. A. S. Woodward, of the British 

 Museum, while the locality itself has l)een touched upon by Di'. von Ihering 

 himself in an article entitled: ' Observacoes soV)re os peixes fosseils de 

 Taubate,' which appeared in volume iii (p. 71) of the ' Revista do Museu 

 Paulista ' for the year 1898. As the locality is fully described in that con- 

 tribution, it will not be necessary to further refer to it in this note. 



The matrix is of dark chocolate brown, with a leathery roughness on the 

 side carrying the fossil; on the other side it is somewhat lighter in color, 

 and exhibits evidences of cleavage horizontally. In size the slab measures 

 al)out 14 cm. b}^ 7.5 cm., and it has an average thickness of 3 mm. It 

 bears evidence of having been cut out of its place where collected with some 

 shai'j) instrument — perhaps a strong knife. .\s noted above, the specimen 



