100 General Notes. [*"£ 



canescens appeared in a February brochure of the 'Biologia' (by inad- 

 vertence said to be March in my note), thus antedating the publication of 

 griseus in the April Auk for the same year, 1889. In this connection 

 both Mr. Brewster, with whom the matter had been discussed, and the 

 writer had overlooked a footnote in Ridgway's 'Manual N. A. Birds,' 

 2d ed., p. 599, giving the date of publication of griseus as Jan. 31, 1889. 

 Further inquiry has brought to light the fact that the author's separates 

 of the paper in which E. griseus was described bears the following imprint : 

 "[Author's edition, published Jan. 31, 1889.]" This early publication, 

 antedating the appearance of 'The Auk,' and also the part of the ' Biologia' 

 containing the name canescens, gives unquestionable priority to the name 

 griseus, of which canescens must stand as a synonym. — E. W. Nelson, 

 Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



The Raven near Portland, Maine. — In 1882 I made note 1 of a 

 Raven, presumably Corvus corax principalis, which was killed in the town 

 of Cumberland, near Portland, December 31, 1875. I examined the speci- 

 men at the time; but I do not know what became of it, and therefore can- 

 not positively state that it represented principalis. 



No doubt the Raven was to be found regularly about Portland in olden 

 times; 2 but I am able to cite only one other record 3 of its occurrence 

 within recent years, and that is regrettably indefinite. I have never 

 seen the bird alive near the city. I have, however, seen a second local 

 specimen. A handsome male, quite typical of principalis, was taken on 

 Cape Elizabeth, January 12, 1884, was secured in the flesh for my collec- 

 tion and was transferred, a few years later, to the cabinet of the Portland 

 Society of Natural History where it remains (No. 3773, N. C. B.). — -Nathan 

 Clifford Brown, Portland, Me. 



Two Ravens (Corvus corax principalis) Seen at Harpswell, Maine. — 

 In bringing the local status of the Raven up to date, it seems desirable 

 to record two living examples which I saw at Little Mark Island, Harps- 

 well, Maine, October 5, 1889. Little Mark Island is about nine and a 

 half nautical miles nearly east of Portland. 



The Raven was a bird with which I had had a long acquaintance : there- 

 fore, as I watched this pair under favorable conditions, and listened to 

 their characteristic notes, I was perfectly sure of the identification. — 

 Arthur H. Norton, Portland, Me. 



The Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) in 

 Georgia. — A young male of this species was taken by Dr. Eugene Edmund 

 Murphey at Augusta, Georgia, on September 23, 1893, and is now in his 



1 Proc. Portland Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. II, p. 17. 



2 See Brewster, Birds of the Cambridge Region, p. 237. 



3 Smith, Forest and Stream, Vol. XIX, 1883, p. 485. 



