^'"'':,'^^ I <ic7ieral Notes. 



'903 



435 



observed at Lake Pasquaney, Bridgewater, N. H., for the past three years. 

 On August 25, 1900, Mr. G. M. Allen noted in the records of Camp Pas- 

 quaney twelve Nighthawks ( Chordeiles virginianus^; the most seen on any 

 date that summer. In 1901, on August 22 and 23, I recorded a large flock, 

 over twenty-five birds each day, passing at sundown slowly to the south- 

 west over the lake. On August 22, 1902, at dusk, a flock of fully three 

 hundred were seen migrating in the same direction. Again this year, on 

 August 22, 1903. in the forenoon, nearly a hundred birds were noted 

 passing over to the southwest. Thus for four vears a definite migratory 

 movement of these birds in considerable numbers has been observed 

 between August 21 and 25. This migration has been noticed in Saco 

 Valley, and I take it the birds passing over Pasquaney are stragglers from 

 the Pemigewasset Valley migration, which occurs regularly. — Reginald 

 Hebkr Howe, Jr., Concord, Mass. 



Nests and Eggs of Cceligena clemenciae. — About July 7, in the Hua- 

 chuca Mountains, Arizona, I discovered a Blue-throated Hummingbird 

 beginning its nest on a shelving rock on the face of a cliff. On the 13th 

 the first Q^'g was laid and on the 15th I took the set of two eggs, nest, 

 and female parent. A single small fern was the only vegetation growing 

 within ten or twelve feet of the nest. The rocks above the nest projected 

 well out from the nest, protecting it from the torrents of rain that falls at 

 that time of the year. The nest was composed chiefly of down from the 

 under side of sycamore leaves, some cocoons and green moss, all firmly 

 bound together with spider webs. The female when started from the 

 nest, instead of flying directly out from the nest and away, would fly 

 straight up the face of the cliff and pass through a rift in the wall. A 

 great fondness is shown by this species to associate itself with rugged 

 places. 



This set of eggs, so far as known, is the third in existence. E. W. 

 Nelson speaks of a nest from which a single Q'gg was secured, built in a 

 shrub up on the side of the Vulcan de Tuluca, Mexico. Josiah H. Clark 

 (Auk, XVII, July, 1900, p. 294) tells us of a set of eggs taken by himself 

 in the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico. In 'The Osprey ' for February, 1899, 

 I described a nest with two eggs I took on May 31, 1S97, in these same 

 mountains, built in a clump of maiden-hair ferns growing from the side 

 of a wall of rock — the side of a deep gorge. The set of eggs taken this 

 year is now in the collections of the Field Columbian Museuin. — George 

 F. Breninger, Phoenix, Arizona. 



Mortality of Purple Martins {Progne purpurea) at Brattleboro, Vt. — 

 During the long rain in June, 1903, the nests in the bird house belonging 

 to William C. Horton of Brattleboro, Vt., became completely watersoaked, 

 and thirty young and two adult Purple Martins were found dead in their 

 nests. The remaining members of the martin colony abandoned the 



