^°':89^'^] Geticral Notes. 407 



August, 1895, and exhibits the autumnal plumage nearly completed. All 

 these individuals weie collected either in the northeastern part of the 

 District of Columbia, or in the adjacent parts of southern Maryland. Of 

 the seven red males in the series taken at random from April 18, 1896, to 

 July 15, only one of them shows the full and completed plumage, and 

 that the one shot on the first-mentioned date. All of the others present 

 more or less green in the wings and tail, and one with a greenish patch 

 on the throat. A specimen, an old male, shot on the 15th of July, 1896, has 

 both the plumage of the entire body and tail red, while the secondaries 

 and primaries of the wings are in the process of the moult, — the new 

 feathers likewise coining in red, — the same applying to the wing-coverts. 

 This tends to prove, in so far at least as this particular specimen is con- 

 cerned, that in the male of this species in the autumnal moult they 

 reassume the red plumage. Another specimen, which I take to be a young 

 male of the first spring, and shot on May 14, 1S97, has the body plumage 

 red, with red and green Avings, but the tail exactly half red and half green, 

 — the green feathers or the left half of the tail being half a centimeter 

 shorter than the red ones. All these feathers are new, with the exception 

 of one of the green ones, and it is found next to the outermost one of 

 that side. Now the first plumage taken on by both sexes of this species 

 after leaving the nest is the olive-green plumage corresponding to that of 

 the normal adult females, and in that plumage the birds of the year 

 migrate south in the autumn. So that the aforesaid specimen shot on 

 May 14, possibly met with an accident, losing all the feathers of the left 

 side of the tail with the exception of the one mentioned, and these being 

 replaced came in green. This seems to be the only explanation to account 

 for the state of affairs seen in this individual. 



In another specimen of this series, a young male of the first autumn 

 in the full green plumage, shows a broadish transverse red bar across the 

 green and perfected feathers of the tail. 



Perhaps the most interesting specimen in the collection is that of a 

 female (adult) which in the spring had, in part, the red plumage of the 

 male, and when collected on the 2d of August, 1897, was in full moult, — 

 the i-ed feathers of the entire plumage being replaced by the green ones 

 of the adult female bird with normal coloration. This particular example 

 then, would tend to show that when the females of this species assume 

 in the spring the red plumage of the males, that in the autumnal moult 

 they pass back again to the plumage of the normally-colored females, — 

 whereas the old males reassume the red plumage. — R. W. Shufeldt, 

 SmithsoniaH Institution, Washingtoti, D. C. 



Purple Martins {Progne stibis) Breeding in Electric Arc-light Caps. — 

 During a recent visit to Vergennes, Vt., I noticed that many pairs of 

 Purple Martins were nesting in the caps suspended over the electric 

 street lamps in the heart of that rural city. Indications of the same pro- 

 clivity to utilize the street lamps for domestic purposes were shown by 



