VOl l906 in ] General Notes. 343 



also went by in open order, were mostly gathered in masses containing 

 from twenty to four hundred birds or more each. They swept along very 

 rapidly. Their largest masses suggested scudding clouds and were decid- 

 edly impressive. The Robins moved a good deal more slowly. Both 

 species flew at altitudes varying from twenty to one hundred yards from 

 the ground, and most of the birds passed within a distance of one hundred 

 and fifty yards from my window, — none, I think, farther away than about 

 an eighth of a mile. 



At ten minutes past ten o'clock I was obliged to take up some work 

 which was awaiting me. But I frequently looked out of the window after 

 that hour, and could detect no diminution in the number of passing birds 

 until after one o'clock p. m. All the afternoon they flew by in gradually 

 diminishing numbers, a good many Robins tarrying for brief periods in 

 the fields before my window. Throughout the day the direction of the 

 flight was the same, and there was practically no retrograding: altogether 

 I saw less than a hundred birds coming back, all Robins. 



I found that I had counted a total of twenty thousand four hundred 

 birds in the hour and a half, at least fourteen thousand of which were 

 Cedar-birds. These figures are much inside the mark. Between ten 

 minutes past ten a. m. and one o'clock p. m. twice the number of birds that 

 I had previously counted must have gone by. A multitude had passed 

 before I began counting. Ten thousand, at the lowest estimate possible, 

 must have followed during the remainder of the afternoon. In the course 

 of the day, therefore, many more than sixty thousand birds passed over 

 that part of Camden which I overlooked. I believe that seventy-five thou- 

 sand — fifty thousand Cedar-birds — would be too low an estimate. The 

 path of the flight also extended south of my position at the window. I 

 cannot say how far it extended, and I can offer no estimate of the number 

 of birds which passed on that side. 



As usual, Robins had this year become more common in and about the 

 town with the approach of February, but there had been no indication of 

 any massing for this flight. Cedar-birds had been common throughout 

 the previous months of the winter. I had never seen them in large num- 

 bers, however, except on February 3 — the day before the flight — when 

 I found some five hundred of them restlessly flying about a near by swamp. 

 They all came together here at times in a dense mass, only to break up 

 again into comparatively small parties. The two species were numerous 

 in the vicinity for weeks thereafter. Still it was plain that the great 

 majority of the host which I had seen had passed on. 



While at Camden during the winters of 1903-4 and 1905-6, I witnessed 

 nothing resembling this flight. — Nathan Clifford Brown, Portland, 

 Maine. 



Chuck- will' s-widow and Mockingbird in Ontario.— Chuck-will 's- 



Widow, Antrostomus carolinensis. — I took a male of this species on May 



