1914 J General Notes. 101 



legs, but on the 25th, two birds, undoubtedly these same two came much 

 nearer and were identified as Willets (Catoptrophorus semipalmatus semi- 

 palmalus.) They were very tame, permitting approach within less than 

 one hundred feet, when their marked plumage was very much in evidence. 

 My two sons and myself watched them for probably an hour with our 

 naked ej^es and also with the field glasses, drew a diagram of their markings 

 and wrote a description from life. We tried to take photographs but in 

 this we failed and pressing for a nearer view, finally caused the birds to 

 move away. We saw them again the next day but that was the last of 

 them. Twenty-five years' observation on this beach has never shown me 

 one before and I beheve them to be very rare here. — Egbert Bagg, Utica, 

 N.Y. 



Killdeer Plover at Cambridge, Mass. — On November 15, 1913, 

 during the Harvard-Yale freshman football game, two Killdeer Plover 

 {Oxyechus vociferus) alighted on the field while the game was in progress. 

 It was during the third period of the game that the plover, calling shrilly, 

 flew over the crowd. Several of the students whistled in reply. The birds 

 circled around for a moment, and then alighted in the very middle of the 

 field, — not forty yards away from the struggling players. Hardly had the 

 birds folded their wings, when the Harvard stand burst out cheering for 

 their team; this was too much for the plover and calling once or twice, they 

 flew up and away. 



This incident is most singular, not only because of the unnatural behavior 

 on the part of the plover, but because Killdeer are extremely rare migrants 

 in the Cambridge region. — G. Kingsley Noble, Cambridge, Mass. 



Turkey Vulture {Cathartes aura septentrionalis) at Martha's Vine- 

 yard, Mass. — On July 25, 1913, I watched an immature Turkey Vulture 

 on the west bank of Squib nocket Pond. The bird was evidently very 

 much interested in something below him on the shore. After hovering 

 and circling for a short time, he aUghted on the ground behind some bay- 

 berry bushes. Upon showing my head above the shrubbery, the vulture 

 swept majestically away; and, followed by a pestering Kingbird, soon 

 disappeared into the blue sky. — G. Kingsley Noble, Cambridge, Mass. 



Doryfera vs. Hemistephania. — In his Birds of North and Middle 

 America, Part V, page 342, Ridgway, following the British Museum 

 Catalogue (Salvin, 1892, p. 38) and the Hand-List (1900), uses Hemi- 

 stephania Reichenbach, 1854, as the generic name of the Lance-billed 

 Hummingbirds, rejecting Doryfera Gould, 1847, because of the prior 

 Doryphora Illiger, 1809. Inasmuch as the second element of these names, 

 though of the same signification, is from a different language and the rules 

 of American Ornithologists' Union Code do not allow the rejection or 

 emendation of a hybrid name, there seems to be no reason why Doryfera 

 should not be employed. Doryfera was used by Hartert in the Tierreich 



