82 General Notes. [^jj 



possible moment; this they did in great part late on that afternoon and 

 during the night of Aug. 27, having landed on the night of Aug. 26. Those 

 birds which found rest in a certain preserved field would immediately return 

 to it and remain there, if shot at while flying outside. These particular 

 birds continued to reside in this field until one hundred and thirty-two had 

 accumulated, when the owners of the field commenced to shoot them ; this 

 drove them from this place to others where they were at once pursued 

 and shot until but few remained by Oct. 1, 1892. 



My friend Mr. Win. Everett, of Dorchester, Mass., sends me the follow- 

 ing note : At Malpeque, Prince Edward Island, Aug. 23, 1S92, during 

 mild and pleasant weather, the first flight of Golden Plover probably 

 landed on the night of Aug. 22, for they were first seen the next day. A 

 few hundred birds remained in the various fields, but the greater part of 

 them passed south. There were but few Plover shot here this season. — 

 George H. Mack ay, Nantucket, Mass. 



Black Vulture in Maine. — Under date of November 3, Mr. Geo. A. 

 Boardman writes me as follows: "Our local taxidermist (Calais, Maine) 

 received a Black Vulture {Catharista atrata) which was killed here. 

 This makes the sixth I have known to be taken in this vicinity, while only 

 one specimen of the Turkey Buzzard (Cafkartes aura') has been secured 

 in this locality. The latter I consider much the more northern bird." 

 —William Dutcher, Nexv York City. 



Some Additional Eastern Records of Swainson's Hawk (Buteo swain- 

 soni). — Proofs that Swainson's Hawk visits New England at no very 

 infrequent intervals and perhaps in some numbers, multiply steadily if 

 slowly. I now have two fresh specimens to report; one killed at Essex, 

 Massachusetts, May 29, 1892, the other near Calais, Maine, about October 

 8, 1892. 



The Essex specimen was sent in the flesh to Mr. M. Abbott Frazar, 

 who mounted it and afterwards sold it to me. It is a fine old bird, a 

 female, in the melanistic phase, wholly dark colored (sooty or clove 

 brown) both above and beneath, save on the bend of the wing, which is 

 whitish, the under surface of the tail, which is banded with ashy white, 

 and the under tail-coverts and crissum, which are soiled white with faint 

 rusty and brownish markings. There is also a little half-concealed 

 whitish on the forehead and chin and the feathers on the back are 

 bordered with faded brown. Mr. Frazar, whose experience in such 

 matters entitles his judgment to much weight, tells me that the ovaries 

 were undeveloped and that the bird was evidently not in breeding condi- 

 tion, a point of some importance in view of the date of its capture. Of 

 the two Massachusetts specimens previously recorded, one (in the Peabody 

 Museum) was taken in the winter of 1871-72 (Allen, Bull. Essex Inst., 

 X, 1878, p. 22), the other (in the present writer's collection) in September, 

 1876, at Wayland (Brewster, Bull. N. O. C, III, Jan., 1878, p. 39). 



