iSgo.] General Notes. 2oQ 



able to follow up the sound owing to the thinness of the ice with which 

 the swamp was coated, and failed to see the bird, although it answered 

 my 'squeaking' several times. January 12, 1890, I visited the same swamp 

 in company with Mr. Frank Bolles. and, finding the ice strong enough to 

 bear, went towards some low bushes where I had heard the bird upon the 

 previous date, and soon started a male Red-winged Blackbird in clear 

 bright plumage. After alighting for a few moments in a small birch not 

 forty yards away, the bird flew off" across the swamp. 



My friend Mr. Walter Faxon informs me that he found a Red-winged 

 Blackbird in the same swamp on January 6, and 27, and on February 1, 

 and 23, 1S90, which was doubtless the same bird. The presence of this 

 bird through January, a month which may be regarded as a test month 

 for birds which are spending the winter with us, and on into February 

 until within a few days of the arrival of the spring migrants, is thus estab- 

 lished, and affords, I believe, the first record of the wintering of the Red- 

 winged Blackbird in Massachusetts. — Henry M. Spelman, Cambridge, 

 Mass. 



Coccothraustes vespertina in Taunton, Massachusetts. — On March 8, 

 [S90, as I was walking out of my door I heard the notes of a bird strange 

 to me but which at first I took to be those of the Pine Grosbeak. 

 Getting my gun and coming out into the yard I found three Evening 

 Grosbeaks feeding on the buds of a maple tree. In the course of a few 

 minutes I had two fine males and a female laid out on my skinning table. 

 This is I think the first record for Bristol County. — A. C.Bent, Taun- 

 ton, Mass. 



The Evening Grosbeak {Coccot/traustes vesfcrtina) near Springfield, 

 Mass. — Mr. Edwin U. Leonard captured at Agawam a bird of this 

 species from a flock of about twenty, March 21, 1S90. A week or two 

 later a bird of the the same kind was seen near there by Mr. Leonard. — 

 Robert O. Morris, Springfield, Mass. 



Junco hyemalis shufeldti in Maryland. — On the 2Sth of April, 1890, my 

 son, A. W. Ridgway, shot a female of this subspecies near Laurel, Md. 

 The specimen is a very typical one, having the distinctly cinnamon-pinkish 

 sides abruptly contrasted anteriorly against the gray of the chest; in fact, 

 so sharply defined and distinct is this pinkish color that it was supposed 

 to be a J. annectens, until careful comparison with specimens showed 

 otherwise. It was shot out of a small flock, in which my son thinks were 

 others of the same kind, but he may have been mistaken. — Robert Ridg- 

 way, Washington, D. C. 



Seaside Sparrows at Monomoy Island, Cape Cod. — Although I have 

 kept a sharp lookout for the Seaside Sparrow (Ammodramus maritimus) 

 at Monomoy every season, the first to my knowledge was taken by Dr. L. 

 B. Bishop on the salt marshes, April 14, 1S90. This bird, which was 



