462 General Notes. [£" k 



persistent. I cannot suggest it more clearly in syllables than as Chur, 

 chur, chur, chur, chur. The commas indicate pauses quite as long as the 

 notes, each of which was about three quarters of a second in duration. 



Perched on one of the topmost twigs of the tree, in a crouching attitude, 

 the singer showed little of his form and nothing of his colors. I failed to 

 identify him; and since I soon left Lakewood for the season, for a year 

 the song remained a mystery to me. 



The following April I heard it again, issuing from a tree-top within a 

 few yards of the one from which I first heard it. Again I failed to identify 

 the author of it, who kept amongst small branches in the tops of tall trees. 

 After a day or two, however, he began to frequent small trees and shrubs. 

 Then I discovered that he was a Chipping Sparrow. 



During the earliest hours of the morning he sang at greater length than 

 at other times. That is to say, the syllable chur was repeated a greater 

 number of times before he took a rest. Often it was repeated a dozen 

 times, occasionally even more. At no hour of the day was it uttered less 

 than three times in succession. 



This second year I heard the bird daily for several weeks, — until I left 

 Lakewood again. The next year I did not stay at Lakewood late enough 

 in the season to hear him. But early in the fourth spring I heard him 

 there once more. 



Direct evidence that a migratory bird — the same individual — has 

 returned to the same locality for several years is not frequently obtainable. 

 Here appears to be such evidence. In the present case, too, the bird 

 returned to the same spot, and was only to be found within an area of about 

 two acres. — Nathan Clifford Brown, Portland, Maine. 



The Towhee Nesting in Bushes. — On June 12, 1906, 1 found in Cochi- 

 tuate, a village of the town of Wayland, Mass., a nest built in a sapling 

 white pine, at the top. This nest may have been three feet from the 

 ground. The pine was within twenty feet or so of a submerged bog, but 

 was on a dry strip of thin scrub-growth, very open, within a few feet of 

 an open wood-road. The nest was a rather bulky one made of dry mis- 

 cellaneous stuff, including dead weed stalks, and was lined entirely with 

 soft dead grass. 



It contained two eggs; — palpably those of the Chewink or Towhee 

 Bunting. I was unable to identify the nest and eggs by the presence of 

 the owners, but Towhees were in the neighborhood, and there is no ques- 

 tion in my mind as to the accuracy of identification. A few hours later, 

 on the same day, I came to a similar nest, fully as bulky as a robin's, 

 built in the first fork of a rather large red cedar on the edge of an open 

 field bordered by a pine grove. Although shadowed by a taller pine, 

 the cedar was practically in the open. The nest was not concealed by 

 any foliage, but was as openly placed as the nest of a semi-domesticated 

 robin in the low fork of a household apple tree. The nest contained four 

 indubitable Towhees' eggs, and was about 5J feet from the ground. The 



