Vol. XT General Nates. 365 



1S93 J 



comprised "fresh meat, mice, and boiled egg." In the spring (1S93) -'it 

 commenced cooing, and sometimes would be gone over night. It roosted 

 in a large outbuilding, and "for fear of losing it," writes Mrs. Smith, 

 "we put a screen to the door and have it confined now" (May 23, 1S93). 



Col. N. S. Goss in his 'Revised Catalogue of the Birds of Kansas' 

 (1886) states that two Road-runners were seen in 1SS4 near the western 

 line of the State, and says : "I feel confident that they occasionally breed 

 in the southwestern corner of the State, a natural habitat for the birds." 

 The occurrence here noted is the only one, excepting the one referred to 

 by Col. Goss, which has been so far recorded for Kansas.— Vernon L. 

 Kellogg, Lawrence, Kansas. 



Two Corrections.— In an article which appeared in the July number of 

 'The Auk' I described at some length a peculiar process of regurgitation 

 employed by the Flicker in feeding its young, believing — and indeed 

 remarking at the time— that the habit was unknown or at least unrecorded. 

 It seems,° however, that it had been previously observed by Mrs. Olive 

 Thorne Miller who published an account of it in 1890 in the 'Atlantic 

 Monthly,' the article being afterwards (in 1892) republished in a collec- 

 tion of essays entitled 'Little Brothers of the Air.' 



It is a pity that writers like Mrs. Miller— gifted with rare powers of 

 observation and blessed with abundant opportunities for exercising them 

 —cannot be induced to record at least the more important of their dis- 

 coveries in some accredited scientific journal, instead of scattering them 

 broadcast over the pages of popular magazines or newspapers, or ambush- 

 ing them in books with titles such as that just quoted. But an oppor- 

 tunity for delivering a properly frank and telling homily on this sad evil is 

 unfortunately denied me on the present occasion, for some one of these 

 writers might be unkind enough to point the moral of a second admission 

 which I am about to make, viz., that my announcement, in the last num- 

 ber of 'The Auk,' of the capture in Georgia, by Mr. Worthington, of two 

 specimens of the Ipswich Sparrow, proves to have been anticipated in a 

 previous issue (Vol. VII, April, 1890, pp. 211, 212) of the same journal. 

 It is needless to say that this fact had quite escaped my memory— as it 

 had also, apparently, that of our usually vigilant editors— and I was 

 further thrown off my guard by Mr. Worthington's statement that, as far 

 as he was aware, his birds had never been reported. This assurance— 

 unquestionably given in good faith— affords a striking as well as amusing 

 instance of the fallibility of human memory, for the record just cited was 

 made by Mr. Worthington himself.— William Brewster, Cambridge, 

 Mass. 



The Number of Ribs in Cypseloides. — The occurrence of a rudimentary 

 seventh pair of ribs is so common among Swifts that I have long been look- 

 ing for a species in which the normal number of ribs should be seven pans. 

 Apparently this looked-for species has at last been found in the western 

 Cloud Swift {Cypseloides tiiger), for four specimens of this bird recently 



