^°|g^'^] General Notes. 223 



first greeting nie near the eastern end of the bog, where I had left the 

 roadway to investigate the source of some vigorous musical efforts on the 

 part of a male Solitary Vireo whose song was then new to me. A short dis- 

 tance in among the spruces brought me to the apparent home of these 

 Warblers. 



Subsequent visits followed ; agilis was as frequently in song and fully 

 as difficult to find, for of the several heard but one was actually seen. So, 

 too, a most careful search for the nest and eggs also proved of no avail, 

 furnishing as it did to my mind, additional evidence of this bird's secre- 

 tive ways in this its chosen breeding home. 



With her network of innumerable lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks and 

 swamps the northern part of Minnesota should furnish many such 

 localities as this, and "in nesting time" a capital resort for the Con" 

 necticut Warbler. 



With further investigation this will doubtless prove true of the pine 

 land regions at least, and more particularly of those portions of the state 

 falling within the limits of the Cold Temperate Subregion of Dr. Allen. 



Other occupants of the bog were the ever present Peabodies, a pair or two 

 of Vi'/eo solitarius, some few specimens of the Purple Finch, and a number 

 of high-colored males of Detidroica blackburnice, inaking in all, as it was, 

 a most interesting gathering, and comprising with the trees and plants 

 a high-class picture of intrinsic worth, one's admiration for which being 

 easily sustained by the additional favored efforts of that post-graduate 

 minstrel of our northern woods, the Hermit Thrush. Now softly, now 

 louder, those exquisitely sweet though melancholy strains would come 

 at times from out the shadier depths of the deeper woods and darkened 

 thickets not so close at hand. — Benj. T. Gault, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. 



Untenability of the Genus Sylvania Nutt. — My tacit acquiescence in 

 our use of Sylvania has hitherto been simply because I had no special 

 occasion to notice the matter, and presumed that our Committee had 

 found the name tenable bv our rules. But a glance at Nuttall's Man., I, 

 1832, p. 290, where the name is introduced, shows that it can have no 

 standing, being merely a new designation of Setophaga Sw. 1827, and 

 therefore a strict synonym. Nuttall formally and expressly gives it as 

 such, making it a subgenus (of Miiscicapa^ in the following terms : 

 "Subgenus. — Sylvania.* (Genus Setophaga, Swainson.)" 



This is enough to kill it — say rather, the name is still-born; and why 

 we ever undertook to resuscitate it passes my understanding. But let us 

 assume, for a moment, that it looks alive, and see what the result will be. 

 Nuttall puts in Sylvania birds of three modern genera: i. The Redstart. 

 2. The Hooded Warbler, etc. 3. The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. i. The 

 Redstart is already type of Setophaga Sw. 2. The Hooded Warbler, etc., 

 are eliminated as Wilsonia Bp., 1838, and Myiodioctes Aud., 1839. 3, 

 Leaving " by elimination " the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher as type of Sylvania, 



