4o8 



Getteral Notes. [^^J^ 



Purple Martins that I watched near North Adams, Mass., in 1S95, and 

 Mr. Brewster tells me that he found a pair of these birds breeding in a 

 similar situation in Colebrook, N. H., in 1896. Probably many of the 

 readers of ' The Auk ' who live in a Martin region are familiar with this 

 nesting habit of the Martin, though I do not remember to have seen any 

 mention of it in print. The late Frank Bolles ('Boston Post,' Feb. 3, 

 1 891) facetiously remarked that the House Sparrow's propensity to build 

 its nest and rear its young " on the edge of Hades" {viz., in electric- 

 lamp reflectors) Avas sufficient evidence that it was the offspring of evil and 

 justly under the ban of the Commonwealth. I had always deemed this a 

 just count against the Sparrow, until I discerned the same disposition in 

 our own favorite Martin ! I hope the lamp-tenders of Vergennes discr.im- 

 inate between Martins and Sparrows in their daily visits to the lamps. — 

 Walter Faxon, Mnseutn of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. 



The Tree Swallow Breeding in Virginia. — The second edition of the 

 A. O. U. Check-List gives the breeding range of Tachycineta bicolor as 

 '' breeding from the Fur Countries south to New Jersey," etc. Dr. Rives 

 in his ' Birds of the Virginias,' page 77, says of this species : " Common 

 summer resident of the Tidewater region from April to September, but 

 rare away from the rivers." He mentions no instance of its breeding, 

 however. Mr. E. J. Brown, formerly of Washington, tells me that in 

 May, 1894, he found a nest containing eggs, on Smith's Island, Virginia. 

 Mr. P. H. Aylett, of Aylett, King William Count}', Virginia, wrote me 

 some years ago about a pair which reared their young one summer at that 

 place. I afterwards saw the site — a cherry stump in a meadow. The 

 birds are fairly numerous on Smith's Island in summer, and I found a 

 nest containing three young, in a hollow tree near the ocean beach, on 

 June 10, 1897. — William Palmer, Washi7igton, D. C. 



Rough-winged Swallows (^Stelgidopteryx serripennis) in Greene and 

 Ulster Counties, N. Y. — On May 29, 1897, I found a pair of Rough- 

 winged Swallows beginning to build in Palenville, Greene County, June 

 II. The nest with six eggs was procured. At Qiiarryville (about five 

 miles south of Palenville, being in the extreme northern part of Ulster 

 County) there is a small colony of these birds breeding regularly every 

 year, in the crevices of the rocks. Here I took a male specimen June 27, 

 1896, and a nest containing five eggs June 29, 1897. These specimens were 

 identified by Mr. Frank M. Chapman. — S. H. Chubb, iVexy York City. 



Peculiar Nesting of the Maryland Yellow-throat. — While collecting 

 in a large slough in Jackson County, Minnesota, on June 9, 1897, amid 

 the green rushes where Long- and Short-billed Marsh Wrens were breed- 

 ing, I ran across a pair of Yellow-throats {Geothlypis trichas) in some 

 high rushes in about four feet of water, and upon investigating I found 

 the nest placed almost level with the water in a thick clump of cat-tails, 

 over fifty feet from shore, and right in the midst of a colony of Marsh 



