'892-] General Noies. 



395 



Perisoreus canadensis in Massachusetts. — While on Mount Gravlock, 

 in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, June 18, 1892, Mr. Win. W. Colburn 

 and mjself observed the presence of a Canada Jay. — Robert O. Morris, 

 Springfield, Mass. 



Up to Date. — My friend, Mr. Wood, tells me that on two occasions he 

 has seen the English Sparrow catching insects at night about an electric 

 light and carrying them to her young; while the chirping of the young in 

 other nests indicated that they, too, were accustomed to being fed at night. 

 Raising vegetables by electric light maybe a good thing, but raising Eng- 

 lish Sparrows in this manner is of more than doubtful utility. — F. A. 

 Lucas, Washington ^ D. C. 



Abnormal Eggs of Spizella socialis. — On July 4, 1892, at Lake Grove, 

 Long Island, New York, I secured a remarkable set of four eggs of the 

 Chipping Sparrow {Spizella socialis). Instead of the normal greenish 

 blue, the ground color of the eggs is a dirty or greenish ruhite; they are 

 thickly specked, spotted and blotched all over, more thickly at the larger 

 end, where the spots become confluent, with dark russet-brown and a few 

 faint blotches of lavender. Their average size, .73 X .55 inch, is slightly 

 greater than the average of six sets in my collection, which is .68 X .53 

 inch. Their shape is rather more pointed than is usual in eggs of this 

 species, yet they can be quite closely matched, both in shape and size, bv 

 eggs from my collection. They were nearly hatched. I saw the bird on 

 the nest on four or five different occasions, as I wished to fully satisfy my- 

 self of the identity of the eggs. — Arthur H. Howell, Brooklyn, N. T. 



Vireo olivaceus in British Columbia and Washington. — Mr. Chap- 

 man's recent record (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., N. Y., Vol. Ill, 1890, 

 p. 149) of the presence of the Red-e^-ed Vireo at Ducks and Ashcroft, 

 British Columbia, was the first intimation that has been given of this 

 bird's occurrence anywhere west of the Rocky Mountains ; and though 

 the western limit of its known range was thus greatly extended, it re- 

 mained a doubtful question whether the species was to be found through- 

 out the intermediate country, or whether these localities might not be 

 isolated, outlying portions of its habitat. The latter view seems improb- 

 able in the light of the facts I have now to record. 



On July 27 and 28, 1891, I made a trip on a small steamboat from 

 Golden. B. C, a little town on the Canadian Pacific Railway, up the 

 Columbia River to its source in Lake Windermere, about a hundred miles 

 southeast of Golden, and on the 29th I returned by the same route. The 

 deck of a moving steamboat is not the most favorable'point from which to 

 observe the srrtall birds on the river's bank, yet on the way up I heard five 

 Red-eyes singing, and on the return trip I noted nine. Several of them I 

 was able to see satisfactorily. Tliis upper reach of the Columbia, lying in 

 a narrow valley between the Rockies and the Selkirks, is about a hundred 

 and fifty miles east of Ducks. 



