V0l i9^6 XI11 ] General Notes. 103 



dark throats and red foreheads, the male with a conspicuous red patch 

 on his breast. 



It might also be of interest to note that the Scaup Duck (Aythya marila), 

 found quite abundantly on the Magdalens by both Rev. C. J. Young and 

 the Rev. H. K. Job, on their visits to the Islands, were this year no where 

 to be found and the islanders could not account for their sudden disap- 

 pearance. — J. P. Callender, Summit, N . J. 



Nesting of the Junco in Eastern Massachusetts. — On May 25, 1905, 

 in the Middlesex Fells, near the Medford border, I ran across a pair of 

 Juncos (Junco hyemalis) with food in their bills. I watched them and 

 the female soon went to the nest. It was situated under the edge of a 

 tussock of grass, in an open space in the woods, and contained four well- 

 grown young. 



The nearest breeding record I have yet found is Fitchburg, mentioned 

 by Messrs. Howe and Allen in their ' Birds of Massachusetts. — R. S. Etjstis, 

 Cambridge, Mass. 



Possible Breeding of Junco hyemalis in Essex County, Mass. — On 

 Sept. 2, 1905, I saw at Boxford, Mass., a young Junco in the juvenal 

 plumage, with streaked back, breast, and belly. The bird was not taken, 

 but I watched it for five minutes, part of the time within ten feet, and 

 fully identified it. Dr. C. W. Townsend (Birds of Essex County) men- 

 tions seeing a Junco at Groveland, Mass. (just north of Boxford), Sept. 3, 

 1904, but he tells me that it was identified from an electric car, and he 

 does not know whether it was an adult or an immature bird. These 

 dates are much earlier than any migration dates known to me. Messrs. 

 Howe and Allen (Birds of Massachusetts) give Sept. 18 as the earliest 

 fall date, and Dr. Townsend gives Sept. 26 for Essex County. As far as 

 I can learn, moreover, the Junco has never been taken in the first plumage 

 at any distance from its breeding grounds, and Dr. G. M. Allen writes 

 me that he has no breeding records for this bird from Southeastern New 

 Hampshire. It is almost impossible, too, that the Boxford bird could 

 have been one of the brood raised in the Middlesex Fells last summer, 

 and recorded by Mr. R. S. Eustis in this number of 'The Auk', for Box- 

 ford is some eighteen miles from that locality and nearly due north. All 

 these facts seem to point to the conclusion that the Junco may prove to 

 be at least an occasional, thought doubtless an extremely rare, breeder 

 in Eastern Massachusetts. — Francis H. Allen, West Roxbury, Mass. 



The Lark Sparrow in Massachusetts. — On August 12, 1905, at Ips- 

 wich, Massachusetts, I observed at close range a Lark Sparrow (Chon- 

 destes grammacus). This makes the sixth record of this species for the 

 State, and the fourth for Essex County. Nearly a year before this, on 

 August 21, 1904, I took at Ipswich an adult male Lark Sparrow (Birds 



