1906 J General Notes. 97 



GENERAL NOTES. 



Leach's Petrel inland in Massachusetts. — A boy picked up a Leach's 

 Petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) on one of the streets in Clinton, Mass., 

 Sept. 27, 1905. The bird was alive and apparently uninjured, but it re- 

 fused to eat anything and died October 2. When it was skinned, a wound 

 was found on the head, as if the bird had flown against a wire. This may 

 explain why it was so easily caught, when apparently there was nothing 

 the matter with it. The town of Clinton is thirty-five miles from the sea. 

 The bird is now in the Thayer Museum. — John E. Thayer, Lancaster, 

 Mass. 



The Name of the Western Sandpiper. — The Western Sandpiper 

 (Ereunetes occidentalis) was described in detail and with accuracy by 

 Lawrence in 1864 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., 1864, p. 107), with the habitat. 

 " Pacific Coast; California, Oregon." 



Heteropoda mauri was named, but not described, by Bonaparte in 1838, 

 in his 'Geographical and Comparative List of the Birds of Europe and 

 North America' (p. 49). Its distribution is given as "South and Central 

 parts [of North America]," in comparison with "America generally" for 

 his H. semipalmata Wilson (—pusilla Linn.). The next reference to the 

 species, by Bonaparte, is in the 'Compte Rendu' for 1856, p. 596, in a 

 nominal list of the Scolopacidae, where there is no description nor indica- 

 tion of locality beyond the inclusion of the species in the list of ' American ' 

 species, and the citation, in parenthesis, of "cabanisi, Licht." and "semi- 

 palmata Gundl." 



In the same year, Gundlach (Journ. f. Orn., Nov. 1856, pp. 419, 420), 

 apparently for the first time, described the species, basing his description 

 on a series of 5 specimens shot in Cuba, in winter, from a flock of large 

 birds. He distinguished two species of Ereunetes in Cuba, a small and a 

 large one. The small one he at first considered to be a new species and 

 described it, in 1850, in Lembeye's 'Aves Cuba,' as Hemipalma minor, 

 but later, in 1856, he identified it with Tringa semipalmata Wilson, and 

 adopted Bonaparte's name Heteropoda mauri for the larger one. He says 

 the two forms are very similar in coloration, but that one is much larger 

 than the other, with very much longer bill and tarsus. He expressed 

 himself in this connection as not having the least doubt of their specific 

 distinctness. He gave the length of the bill in three specimens of the 

 large form as, respectively, one inch, eleven twelfths of an inch, and ten 

 and one third twelfths, as against nine and three-fourths twelfths in the 

 small form; while the length of the tarsus was as ten and three-fourths 

 twelfths to ten twelfths. These measurements of mauri are fully up to 

 those given for occidentalis by Ridgway, in Baird, Brewer and Ridgway's 

 'Water Birds of North America' (Vol. I, p. 207). 



