1890.] General Notes. gi 



1881, I saw a fine Saw- Whet Owl which alighted on a stump among some 

 red cedars and afterwards flew freely about without apparent inconvenience, 

 the day being dark and cloudy. — Edgar A. Mearns, M. I)., Fort iSnelling, 

 Minn. 



Megascops asio maxwelliae. — Three ejected pellets of the Rockv 

 Mountain Screech Owl, sent by Mr. Denis Gale from Gold Hill, Boulder 

 Co., Colorado, tor examination as to nature of food, and examined by Dr. 

 A. K. Fisher of" the Department of Agriculture, have been found to con- 

 tain the following materials. 



No. 1. The remains of a meadow mouse {Arvicola) and crawfish. 



No. 2. Made up almost entirely of the remains of crawfish with a few 

 fragments of beetles. 



No. 3. Remains of crawfish. — Charles E. Bendire, Washington, 

 D. C. 



The American Hawk Owl near Washington. D. C. — It may be of 

 interest to the readers of 'The Auk' that a tine specimen of Surnia ulula 

 caparoch was taken here in the District of Columbia on the 29th of 

 November, 18S9, and is now in the hands of Mr. Webster, the taxidermist 

 of Washington. Is it not an unusual locality tor it? — R. W. Siiufeldt, 

 Was/ii/tgton, I?. C. 



Note on Cyanocitta stelleri litoralis Maynard. — In separating the Van- 

 couver Island Jay as a new form, I fear Mr. Maynard was influenced bv in- 

 sufficient material. Comparison of six specimens from Vancouver Island 

 with a series of some twenty stelleri taken in the adjoining coast region, 

 ami in British Columbia by Mr. Clark P. Streator, shows that the charac- 

 ters assigned the island bird are neither constant nor peculiar. In three 

 of the six the bands across the tail are very evident : in the three remaining 

 the bands are obsolete or appreciable only in certain lights, but these 

 three specimens are exactly matched by several examples in my series from 

 the mainland. 



The same variation in markings is also shown by other members of this 

 group, and I have examined specimens of frontalis from California, and 

 macrolopha from Arizona and Sonora. in the collections of Mr. Brewster 

 ami the American Museum, in which the barring of wings and tail was 

 reduced to the minimum. — Frank M. Chapman, American Museum of 

 Natural History, Netv York City. 



Capture of a Canada Jay ( Perisoreus canadensis) near Cambridge. 

 Massachusetts. — Mr. James R. Mann has given me permission to announce 

 the interesting fact that a Canada Jay was shot at Arlington Heights 

 I within sight of Cambridge and less than four miles distant in an air 

 line) by Mr. E. B. Winship, Oct. 17, 1SS9. The specimen was mounted, 

 and is now in Mr. Mann's collection. It is a male in perfect autumnal 

 plumage. The stomach was tilled with the remains of "wasps or bees," 

 but contained no traces of other food. 





