°'i9ll J General Notes. 257 



The first of these, found on June 12, 1908, situated in a small bulrush 

 marsh, contained 11 half incubated eggs; the other nest, in a different 

 part of the meadows, held 9 eggs (all fresh) on June 13, 1910, and was 

 placed in a thick cattail marsh. Both sets were collected and are now in 

 the writer's collection, and identification was obtained by seeing the birds 

 at the nests on both occasions. 



During the summer of 1909, I failed to find any nests or birds in 

 the meadows, where I searched thoroughly for them, but the foregoing 

 nests and birds rewarded my diligent searches during the years of 1908 

 and 1910, so the King Rail is still to be regarded as a rare breeder in Phila- 

 delphia County — at least in the northeastern part. 



Virginia Rail.- — This rail seems to be increasing in northeastern 

 Philadelphia as a summer resident. I stated in ' The Auk,' Vol. XXV, 

 p. 219, that I had only found two nests prior to 1908, but my persistent 

 searches during the past two years have been rewarded by the discovery 

 of several nests at Bridesburg, and two sets of eggs were collected. A set 

 of 10 fresh eggs was taken on June 10, 1909, and another clutch of 9, 

 highly incubated, on May 27, 1910; both of these sets are now in the 

 writer's collection. 



Of the other nests found, two were empty and were apparently never 

 used, being probably deserted on account of being discovered before any 

 eggs were laid, and a brood was raised in a third. In another part of the 

 meadows, in July, 1909, a brood was raised in a marsh, where the young 

 were seen numerous times by different persons. 



Mr. Edwin C. Axe, a local taxidermist, tells me of having seen four young 

 rails, undoubtedly of this species, at Point Breeze, a locality on the Schuyl- 

 kill River, to the south of the city, in the summer of 1905 (?), and of his 

 failure to capture any of them. — Richard F. Miller, Aramingo, Phila- 

 delphia, Pa. 



Hudsonian Godwit (Limosa hcemastica) in Massachusetts. — Dur- 

 ing the latter part of the summer, more especially during late August and 

 early September, there was quite a flight of Hudsonian Godwit along the 

 coast. Though this bird is not distinctly very rare within the borders of 

 this State it is so uncommon that but very few are seen or shot in any one 

 season. This summer and fall there were more birds than there have been 

 for a number of years. The total of those I could get definite reliable 

 records of show 25 shot on 17 different dates. There are also records of 

 more seen, some of which are authentic while others are questionable. The 

 latter I have carefully excluded from the list but mention them later on. 

 A reliable gunner at Chatham, who has been shooting for about twenty 

 years, informed me that he had not in his experience seen or heard of their 

 being so many around. All my records are from localities south of Boston, 

 for I found none for the northern part of the State. It may be of interest 

 to tabulate these below : — 



