272 General Notes. |_April 



the middle of January, as was the case in the city. Nevertheless Mr. 

 Robert T. Sterling, of Peaks Island, reported a flock of thirty or forty on 

 February 19. 



The food of the birds which I watched in Portland consisted mainly of 

 mountain ash berries. The trees were heavily laden with fruit, this year, 

 and there are at least fifteen of them in the Western Promenade section, 

 which may be roughly estimated as covering fifty acres. A fine buck- 

 thorn hedge was soon stripped of an abundant crop of berries : in fact the 

 Robins ate these with evident preference. They appeared not to like 

 barberries, of which they might have had an ample supply; only once did 

 I see any birds testing them, and then but a few. Suet and other con- 

 tributions of sympathetic householders were untouched so far as I ob- 

 served, and no attention was paid to nests of the brown-tail moth. 



The sexes were about equally represented amongst the birds. No 

 other species associated with them ; but on January 9 I saw several of them 

 attacked and vigorously chased about by English Sparrows. The large 

 flocks were restless and noisy; the small flocks of later date were sluggish 

 and usually silent. — Nathan Clifford Brown, Portland, Maine. 



Winter Ranges of Geese on the Gulf Coast; Notable Bird Records 

 for the same Region. — The writer noted in the July, 1910, Auk, the fact 

 that Blue Geese (Chen cozrulescens) were very abundant in the Mississippi 

 Delta and the vicinity of Vermillion Bay, La. Further field work under 

 authorization of the Biological Survey during the present winter shows 

 that this is the only part of the Gulf Coast that is visited by large num- 

 bers of this species. At Cameron, La., further west they were numerous 

 November 28 to December 6, 1910, but over-shadowed in numbers by 

 both Canada and Snow Geese, while at Gum Cove in the southwestern 

 part of Cameron Parish, La., they were scarce, only a few being seen now 

 and then among the Snow Geese. The writer saw two here January 2. 

 One was seen at Lake Surprise near Galveston, Texas, December 12, 1910, 

 and two at Matagorda, Texas, December 21. 



These observations are in harmony with previous records of the occur- 

 rence of the Blue Goose, and point to the following conclusions: the center 

 of abundance of the species is a narrow strip extending along the coast of 

 Louisiana from the Delta of the Mississippi to a short distance west of 

 Vermillion Bay. To the eastward the bird is known only as a straggler, 

 and to the west it diminishes gradually in numbers, being scarce on the 

 extreme western coast of Louisiana and rare on the Texas coast. 



Passing to the Snow Goose (Chen hyperboreus) it was noted in 1910 that 

 in the Mississippi Delta and Vermillion Bay regions, there was one Snow 

 Goose to about each 25 Blue Geese, and that the Snow Geese formed no 

 flocks of their own. At Cameron, La., during the present season (Nov. 

 28-Dec. 6, 1910) they were abundant, and at Gum Cove (Jan. 2-5, 1911) 

 they were very abundant. Flocks containing many thousands were seen 

 daily in this locality. The species was common at Lake Surprise (Dec. 





