108 General Notes. Ljan! 



with a hose, they remained undisturbed, and when I sat in the hammock 

 they would change their course of flight from the nest and pass close to 

 my head, and even come into the kitchen wash-day when the room was 

 full of steam." 



The above is the interesting account of these birds furnished me by the 

 mistress of the house where they raised their brood. From the light it 

 throws upon the habits of this species when under the influence of unusual 

 environment, I deem it worthy of record. A few rods back of the house 

 flows the Kalamazoo River, bordered by a fringe of willows, and it was 

 doubtless these neighboring conditions that brought the birds to this pecul- 

 iar nesting site. 



American Hawk Owl (Surnia ulula caparoch). Nov. 19, 1905, a fine- 

 plumaged bird of this species was brought in to Mr. Eppinger to be mounted. 

 With it came the information that it had been killed at Port Huron, St. 

 Clair Co., Mich., and that several more had been taken in that neighbor- 

 hood. This last statement I have been unable to verify with exact cer- 

 tainty as yet. The bird had not been long dead, as the lice upon it were 

 still lively and crawling about. It was a male and had probably been 

 killed the day before. 



Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias). Among other recent interest- 

 ing occurrences was the unusual numbers of this species taken late this fall. 

 During the first week and a half of November Mr. Campion received eight 

 of them from different persons to mount, all from the vicinity of the Point 

 Mouille Marshes. All were immatures but one. This bird does not usu- 

 ally linger here as late as this in such numbers. — P. A. Taverner, Detroit. 

 Mich. 



Some Nebraska Bird Notes. — Cinclus mexicanus. Dipper. — On page 

 680 of the recently published third volume of his ' Birds of North and 

 Middle America, ' Mr. Ridgway cites the reference by Mr. W. W. Cooke 

 (Bird Migr. Miss. Valley, p. 264) to this species as abundant in Otoe 

 County, Nebraska, and in a footnote points out that this record must be 

 an error since the locality in question is bordering on the Missouri in the 

 extreme eastern part of the State, in " the prairie region, a country different 

 as possible from that inhabited by the present species." In this conclu- 

 sion Mr. Ridgway is entirely correct, and it is perhaps worth while to 

 point out the origin of the error. Mr. Cooke, as he states, obtained this 

 record from Prof. Samuel Aughey's paper on the food habits of Nebraska 

 Birds (Rept. U. S. Ent. Comm., Appendix II, p. 16) where under the 

 name "Cinclus mexicanus, Sw.," he says: "Rare in Nebraska. Seen it 

 for the first time in August on the Niobrara, about seven miles from its 

 mouth, in a dense timber. I was near enough to observe it eating locusts. 

 Hon. J. Sterling Morton says that they are abundant in Otoe County." 

 Examining Aughey's paper it will be seen that in juxtaposition to the 

 technical name of the Dipper is the common name "Western Bluebird," 



