88 General Notes. [^uk 



condition, reported by Mr. W. E. D. Scott from one of the coast islands 

 in 1877. He states that the Black Ducks were "Common [in summer], 

 breeding in numbers about the small salt-water ponds on the beach." ' 



Although this bird is still occasionally reported as breeding along the 

 coast, the present find seems to be the only record of the discovery of a nest 

 with eggs since the seventies. It is therefore welcome evidence that this 

 fine bird will reside with us, if it is thoroughy protected during the early 

 spring. 



The Marsh Hawk {Circus hudsonius) , though nesting regularly in the 

 northern half of the State, is a rare breeder in the southern half. Appar- 

 ently the last published record of the finding of a nest in southern New 

 Jersey is to be found in the 'Bulletin' of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, 

 1879, p. 224, where Mr. W. E. D. Scott states, he took a nest with young 

 and eggs at Long Beach, June 28, 1877. Another set of eggs seems to have 

 been secured at the same place June 25, 1886.- On May 13, 1908, I dis- 

 covered a nest containing five eggs on the edge of the Great Egg Harbor 

 Meadows. It is perhaps interesting to note that it was found within sixty 

 feet of the Black Duck's nest, above mentioned, though discovered nine 

 days previously.^ — Robert Thomas Moore, Haddonjield, N. J. 



Concerning Three alleged "Erroneous Georgia Records."— Pressure of 



other matters has caused me to overlook until now Mr. Wayne's article 

 in 'The Auk' for April, 1908, disputing the correctness of the citation on 

 p. 208, Part II, 'Birds of North and Middle America,' of a breeding record 

 for Molothrus ater in Georgia, offering as proof that "during the month of 

 May, 1901," he "failed to detect the Cowbird" in Wayne, Mcintosh, and 

 Glynn counties, Georgia. Bendire, however, states positively (Life Hist. 

 N. Am. Birds, 1895, p. 435) that, to his knowledge, the species does breed 

 in Wayne and Mcintosh counties, Georgia ; consequently there are reasons 

 for suspecting that Mr. Wayne's failure to find the species while making 

 observations there (for part of a single month in each county) hardly 

 proves Major Bendire to have been mistaken. 



As to the breeding of the Bank Swallow and Short-billed Marsh Wren 

 on St. Simon's Island, which Mr. Wayne rather positively discredits, it is 

 only necessary to say that Mr. Bailey's records (Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, VIII, 

 1883, pp. 38, 39), cited by me, are based on eggs actually collected there 

 and positively identified (both by Mr. Bailey and myself), and that therefore 

 my citation of an alleged "unquestionably erroneous record" was in reality 

 not "due to an oversight." It is of course quite possible that none of 

 the species mentioned now breed in Georgia; but even were this estab- 

 lished as a fact it would by no means prove that they did not nest there 

 between 1853 and 1865. — Robert Ridgway, Washington, D. C. 



1 Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, 1879, p. 226. 



2 Birds of New Jersey, by Witmer Stone, in Report of New Jersey State Museum 

 for 1908, p. 161. 



3 For detailed account see ' Cassinia,' 1908, p. 35. 



