412 General Notes. \oa. 



iEgialitis nivosa. Snowy Plover. — On July 6 there was brought to 

 me for my inspection a Snowy Plover in the flesh. So far as is known 

 this is the third record for Toronto. — J. H. Ames, Toronto, Catiada. 



Disgorgement among Song-birds. — In response to the suggestion 

 appended to Mr. Joseph Grinnell's interesting note in regard to ' Disgorge- 

 ment among Song Birds,' which appeared in the last number of 'The 

 Auk,' I am moved to jot the following. 



While observing the nesting habits of Wood Thrushes — more than a 

 score of years ago — my curiosity was first aroused as to how those birds 

 managed to so perfectly clean — polish, I might say — the quantity of 

 cherry stones I used to find in their nests. After a time I noticed that 

 the parent birds fed to their young broods the cherries whole, as they 

 were brought from the trees, scattered sparsely in the adjacent woods. 

 These cherries, I may say, were noticeably smaller than such as are of 

 average market size, being such as are termed by botanists ' escapes,' and 

 it wa.s not uncommon to find a fair handful of the stones in each nest in 

 a proportion of those examined. 



But two or three years later, when the chance occurred of watching the 

 process of rearing by hand a couple of broods of Wood Thrushes, I 

 observed that when the half-fledged young ones were fed with small 

 cherries, unbroken, that afterwards at short intervals — as the pulp was 

 digested — they raised the cherry stones in their throats and expelled 

 them, perfectly clean, from their bills. Occasionally only a single stone 

 was thus ejected, but, more generally, two or three at a time would follow 

 each other rapidly. And in this way it happened that I first understood 

 how it came about that the cherry' stones found in Wood Thrushes' nests 

 were polished. 



Since then, however, I have had many opportunities of observing that 

 the habit of disgorging the stones of small fruits and the large seeds of 

 some berries, such as those of the dogwood and Virginia creeper, is 

 common to various species of birds ; and besides those named, in this 

 respect, by Mr. Grinnell, I have witnessed it in all our true Thrushes 

 except (for lack of opportunity) Bicknell's Thrush. Among Warblers, 

 etc., I have noticed that this habit is possessed by the Red-eyed Vireo, 

 Myrtle Bird, European Robin and larger Pettichaps — this latter observed 

 only in captivity. 



But as far as my observations extend, I am inclined to think that such 

 birds as are both insectivorous and frugivorous and whose practice is 

 also, wholly or mainly, to peck their food to little bits before swallowing 

 it, as is the case with the Brown Thrushes and Catbird, for examples, do not 

 possess this habit of disgorgement. — Thomas Proctor, Brooklyn, N. V. 



Disgorgement of Cherry Stones again Noted. — Mr. Joseph Grinnell's 

 notes on the 'Disgorgement of Song-birds,' Auk, Vol. XIV, 1897, page 

 318, have prompted me to describe a similar experience I had this summer 

 while photographing a nest near Philadelphia, Pa. After tying my 



