I9ii J General Notes. 485 



Rough-legged Hawk (Archibuteo lagopus sancti-johannis) . — -On 

 March 25, 1911, while on Protection Island, Straits of Juan de Fuca, I 

 picked up a dead bird of this species that had been shot by some gunner. 

 It had not been killed more than a few days and was apparently an adult 

 male in the light phase of plumage but was too much decomposed to 

 prepare. — S. F. Rathbun, Seattle, Wash. 



Buteo platypterus Eating Minnows. — The intense and prolonged 

 dry spell has dried, among others, the creek Rio Seco on the San Carlos 

 estate; water being found only in two or three shallow puddles 6 or 8 feet 

 long by half as broad and 4 inches deep, at deepest. These puddles were 

 alive with small minnows known locally as " Guayacones." 



On April 9, 1911, I shot from a tree near one of these puddles a female 

 Broad-winged Hawk {Buteo platypterus) . Upon examining her crop I was 

 surprised to find 16 whole minnows from | to \\ inches long, which she had 

 just eaten. Unfortunately I did not witness the fishing process. — Chas. 

 T. Ramsden, Guanlanamo, Cuba. 



The Black-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus erythrophthabnus) Breeding on 

 the Coast of South Carolina. — On May 10, 1911, while in company 

 with Mr. J. H. Riley, who had come to South Carolina with Dr. Edgar A. 

 Mearns and Mr. Edward J. Brown to collect topotypes of birds for the 

 Smithsonian Institution, I took an adult female Coccyzus erythrophthabnus, 

 which was the first specimen I had ever seen alive. Upon examining the 

 bird I found the lower breast and abdomen completely denuded of feathers 

 showing that incubation was going on, but although we searched the swamp 

 carefully for the nest we were unable to find it. 



On May 12 I again visited the swamp, accompanied by a colored boy, 

 and shot another female within one hundred yards of the spot where the 

 first bird was taken. This bird had the lower breast and abdomen bare 

 showing that it was incubating, and dissection proved, in both cases, that 

 all the eggs had been laid. 



Dr. Mearns accompanied me to the swamp on May 13 with the intention 

 of hunting the greater portion of the forest critically for the nests, as well 

 as to secure other birds of this species, but although we took two specimens 

 of C. americanus we were unsuccessful in finding the other species, or its 

 nest. The bodies of both specimens of erythrophihalmus are in the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, and the skins are in my collection. 



Mr. Gilbert R. Rossignol, Jr., of Savannah, Georgia, writes me that 

 Mr. F. N. Irving (also of Savannah) took a specimen of C. erythroph- 

 thalmus at Sand Island, Beaufort County, S. C, on April 23, 1911, which 

 is now in my collection; also a specimen from Savannah taken April 9, 

 1911, by Mr. Rossignol, both of which he kindly presented to me. The 

 capture of the two females of Coccyzus erythrophthalmus, by the writer 

 near Mount Pleasant, makes the first authentic breeding record for the 

 State. — Arthur T. Wayne, Mount Pleasant, S. C. 



