General Notes. 



97 



A Curious Specimen of the Yellow-throated Warble {Dendroica 

 dominica). — On August 29, 1SS9, I shot near Charleston an adult male 

 Yellow-throated Warbler in full autumn plumage with the back nearly 

 jet black. The whole back is black, but concealed partially. Every 

 feather has a large black spot with only a very small portion of the end 

 marked with the usual color, i. c, bluish gray. This is not the first speci- 

 men I have taken marked in that way, for I shot one in 1SS5 which also 

 has a blackish back, but not nearly as pronounced as the one I now 

 record. I have both of these birds in my collection. — Arthur T. 

 Wayne, Charleston, S. C. 



The Nest and Eggs of Regulus calendula. — About the 20th of May, 

 tSSS, while at one of our cattle ranches on the White Mountains, Apache 

 Co., Arizona, I noticed a pair of Ruby-crowned Kinglets busily engaged 

 in picking up feathers from in front of the door of the ranch. These 

 feathers they carried to a clump of tall spruce-fir trees about sixtv yards 

 from the house, but for some time I could not be certain as to which tree 

 they were building in. Finally I noticed that the Kinglets stayed longer 

 in one particular tree than in any of the others, so I climbed it and at last 

 discovered the nest in a clump of fir cones near the top of the tree. I did 

 not touch the nest as I knew it could not then contain eggs. Next day I 

 was unfortunately obliged to return to the home ranch, thirty-five miles 

 northeast of this place, preparatory to a trip to New Mexico, as we had to 

 start on June 3. On June 1, that being the last day I could spare, I rode 

 the thirtv-nve miles in the morning to the tree where the nest was, tied 

 my horse to another tree, and ascended to the nest. It was blowing 

 furiously, and the nest was so near the top of the tree that taking it becamea 

 matter of considerable difficulty. The nest was completely hidden by the 

 fircones surrounding it, and was placed about four feet out from the stem 

 of the tree, at the end of a branch, so I ultimately found it necessary to cut 

 off the branch, nest and all. The nest contained five fresh eggs. Cutting 

 oft" the extreme end of the branch with the cluster of cones and nest still 

 attached, I descended the tree but unfortunately broke an egg on the way 

 down. Even after I had the nest down upon the ground, it was no easy 

 matter to get the eggs out without breaking them. This, however, I 

 finally succeeded in doing, and packing the eggs in my hat, I started on 

 my long ride home rejoicing. 



The nest, as before stated, was placed in a bunch of cones at the end of 

 a small branch, in a spruce-fir tree, at an altitude of about sixty or seventy 

 feet from the ground. It was semi-pensile, being attached to the branch 

 above and also to the cones all round. Fine moss, lichens, cobwebs, etc., 

 were its^chief components, the interior plentifully lined with feathers, 

 chiefly those of the Wild Turkey and Dusky Grouse. The external width 

 of the nest was about' 4 inches, internal width about 1.5 inches, depth 

 from 1.5 to 2 inches. On my return from New Mexico I was annoyed to 



