x " l 1 ,^ : ; xx ] General Notes. Ill 



the specimen was not sexed though its coloring and size would favor its being 

 a female. The bird was in company with a small flock of Green-winged 

 Teal, and the wind at the time was southeast. It seems a strange fact that 

 this bird has not been recorded from Florida before, a region that has so 

 long received the attentions of sportsmen and naturalists. 



Mr. Perry has generously presented this specimen to the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology at Cambridge. — W. Sprague Brooks, Milton, Mass. 



Little Blue Heron (Florida carulea) in Vermont — While on Mon- 

 tebello Hill, Newbury, Vt., on August 16, 1912, between 5 and 6.30 p. m., 

 1 was looking down upon a swampy meadow which lies below and in which 

 the Bittern makes its home, and saw something unusual moving about. 

 Using my field glasses I saw that it was a white heron wading slowly in the 

 water. It was not so large at the Great Blue Heron with which I was 

 familiar and was pure white except the tips of the wings which were a 

 soft gray — evidently the Little Blue Heron in immature plumage. I 

 could not see the legs as the water came nearly up to the body. 



It moved very slowly and deliberately feeding among the plants which 

 grew in the water. I watched it for half an hour or more until it passed 

 out of sight around a curve. It made no call of any kind. — Anna E. 

 Cobb, Providence, R. I. 



Swimming of Young Herons. — In his excellent article, ' Bird Gene- 

 alogy,' (Auk, XXIX, 1912, pp. 285-295), Dr. Charles W. Townsend speaks 

 of the ease and grace in swimming shown by a young Green Heron when 

 placed in the water. It may be of interest to note that young herons of 

 several species sometimes take to the water voluntarily. On a trip to the 

 breeding island of Snowy Herons near Charleston, S. C, on July 4, 1912, 

 I found most of the young of all of the five species of herons which breed 

 there well able to fly. Many, however, could only scramble about in the 

 branches of their nesting trees or fly short distances to keep out of my way 

 as I passed. As I walked around to the windward side of the island, driving 

 numbers of young herons before me, I saw a young Louisiana Heron, which 

 had flown a few yards up the wind, resting quietly on the water. I thought 

 it had fallen there, and was surprised to see that it was swimming with truly 

 swanlike grace. While I watched, about a dozen others — Louisianas, 

 Little Blues, and, I think, one or two Snowies — flew out from shore and 

 deliberately alighted on the water. I waited for some minutes to see how 

 they would make back to land, and soon found that, after a short rest, they 

 could rise with ease from the surface of the water and fly back to the trees 

 on shoro. — Francis M. Weston, Jr., Charleston, S. C. 



Northern Phalarope {Lobi^s lobatus) in Michigan. — The status of 

 this Phalarope as a Michigan species has been somewhat in doubt. Prof. 

 Barrows states (Mich. Bird Life, 1912, 166), " I do not know of an actual 

 Michigan specimen preserved anywhere." I can add one unimpeachable 

 record — there is a female in the U. S. National Museum, No. 170,517, 



