482 General Notes [qS 



contained nearly fledged young. It would not have been discovered but 

 for the twittering of the nestlings when being fed by the parent bird. The 

 nest was merely a few straws in a depression of the ground in the middle 

 of a large tuft of " bunch grass." — W. J. Hoxie, Savannah, Ga. 



Pomarine Jaeger Capturing a Phalarope. — An interesting account 

 of a Pomarine Jaeger capturing and devouring a Phalarope has just been 

 presented to me by a friend, Mr. Allan Moses of Grand Manan, N. B. 

 Mr. Moses and his family for three generations have been taxidermists 

 and students of ornithology and I have always found their observations 

 accurate and their accounts reliable. Mr. Moses was fishing several miles 

 off shore at the time and apparently there were numerous Northern Phala- 

 ropes in the vicinity. He writes: " I saw something last Friday that I 

 never saw or knew anything about before. I saw a Pomarine Jaeger 

 catch a phalarope. There was a pair of the jaegers. The female started 

 after the phalaropes and chased them a long time. They were too smart 

 for her, and after a long chase, she separated out one, and then the male 

 gave chase, and in a few minutes with the two chasing the little fellow, 

 one caught him within a hundred yards of the vessel; then they both 

 lighted in the water and ate him." 



This letter was dated May 31, and " last Friday " would be the twenty- 

 sixth, making the date of the observation, May 26, 1911. — Albert W. 

 Tuttle, Boston, Mass. 



Egrets (Herodias egretta) in Massachusetts. — On August 9, 1911, 

 I secured an Egret from a flock of six on the East ham Marshes of Cape Cod. 

 The birds had been feeding far out on the open mud flats, but luckily for 

 me approached some " hummocks " of grass behind which I was able to 

 stalk them. Mr. Matthew Luce, who has a house commanding a fine 

 view of the marsh, had been seeing them intermittently since about July 21, 

 and on several occasions approached within a few yards of them. Walter 

 Xickerson, the game warden, had also been watching them and said they 

 always roosted together in a certain tree at a nearby Night Heron colony. — 

 Stanley Cobb, Milton, Mass. 



The Egret in Plymouth County, Mass.— On July 27, 1911, I saw 

 two Egrets (Herodias egretta) in the salt marsh near the mouth of North 

 River, which is the boundary between the towns of Marshfiekl and Scituate 

 on the south shore of Massachusetts. They were catching fish, and 

 permitted a fairly near approach. Neither had plumes. They were still 

 at North River on August 6. 



On July 30 I saw an Egret in the southern part of the town of Plymouth. 

 This bird was catching frogs and fish at a small pond but a short distance 

 from farm buildings. When I startled him, he flew up into a hillside 

 pasture close by. The tall white wader presented a striking and unique 



