88 General Note*.. [^ a u n k 



at Larch mo nt on Long Island Sound on July xS and in Central Park, New- 

 York City, on August 29. Dr. Mearns does not include it in his 'Bird 15 of 

 the Hudson Highlands,' and Dr. Fisher tells me he has not met with it at 

 Sing Sing. Mr. J. Rowley, Jr., informs me that at Hastings-on-the 

 Hudson a few miles north of Yonkers he sees one or two of these birds 

 each year. But the most interesting evidence concerning the Carolina 

 Wren in the Hudson- Valley is furnished by Mr. Bicknell whose notes 

 were made at Riverdale on the eastern shore of the river, exactly opposite 

 Englewood. Mr. Bicknell writes : " About Riverdale the Carolina Wren 

 is certainly more common than it used to be. Up to 1879, when I found 

 it breeding at Spuyten Duyvil, I regarded it as an accidental visitor. My 

 brothers were close observers of birds before me, and they had never seen 

 it, although one had been shot at Riverdale in the late autumn of 1873. 

 Of late years I have come to look upon it as a regularly irregular visitor, 

 and every year I expect to meet with it at least two or three times. . . . 

 It has seemed to me the eastern shore of the Hudson gets the overflow 

 from the Wren population of the slopes of the Palisades, which has 

 undoubtedly been increasing. For years past on occasional visits to the 

 Palisades from spring until late in autumn I have never failed to hear the 

 Carolina Wren, and have frequently heard two singing at the same time. 

 On one occasion I heard two singing and saw still another, all at the 

 same moment." My own more recent experience with this bird on the 

 Palisades, as herein recorded, confirms Mr. Bicknell's remarks, and it 

 would appear that, having become permanently established there, it is 

 gradually spreading through the surrounding country. — Frank M. Chap- 

 man, American Museum of Natural History, Netv Tork City. 



Sitta canadensis appearing in Numbers in the District of Columbia. — 

 Last autumn the writer collected birds quite extensively atTakoma, D.C., 

 and vicinity, especially in the southern part of Montgomery County, Mary- 

 land. During all that time and the following winter not a single speci- 

 men of the Red-breasted Nuthatch (S. canadensis) was observed, and 

 there is every reason to believe that they were not at all represented among 

 the fall migrants of that season (1891-1892). This autumn, however, 

 (1892) the case is entirely different, for in the same localities the bird 

 came early, and in most unusual numbers. They have appeared in loose 

 flocks, associated with the usual autumn small birds, as Juncos, Titmice, 

 Wrens, etc., and upon several occasions one could count as many as 

 thirty or forty of them from a single point of observation. There would 

 be no trouble in collecting as many as fifty specimens in a day. Many 

 birds of the year are among them, as is indicated by their duller plumage 

 and less decided markings. A number of years ago I remember this 

 species appearing thus suddenly one autumn in the neighborhood of 

 Stamford, Connecticut, a place where the writer collected birds for a long 

 time early in the sixties and where the species had not been noticed for 

 many seasons. — R. W. Shufeldt, Takoma, D. C. 



