334 General Notes. [£ u ct k 



restricted, and only visible on parting the feathers; the plumage is also 

 much brighter and fresher than in ten spring males with which it has 

 been compared. 



Back dark olive green, upper part of head and neck slate-gray, with a 

 greenish tinge changing to olive-green on tbe sides of neck and ear- 

 coverts. Forehead, lores and chin lemon-yellow, connected with similar 

 color around eyes and extending along sides of throat to the shoulders. 

 Yellow of forehead obscured by greenish, the lores by black. Throat 

 and forepart of breast dull black. All black feathers tipped with pale 

 greenish vellow, those on the throat being marked as follows. Bases 

 dusky-black, centers pale yellowish, then a band of darker dusky-black 

 tipped with yellowish. Wings and tail as in adults but fresher. Breast 

 lemon-yellow extending down the center nearly to the under tail-coverts, 

 which are yellow at the base, the longer feathers as well as the abdomen 

 being white; sides of breast greenish. Shoulders yellow as in adults, 

 the middle wing-coverts edged with yellowish with dark centers. Three 

 outer tail-feathers with white blotches on inner webs, the fourth showing 

 some white on the edge and the fifth but a trace. Bill black above and 

 near tip of lower mandible, the rest horny; feet dark. As the specimen 

 was moulting the feathers about the throat are scanty and the markings 

 not well defined. The first three primaries are but half grown, they 

 evidently being the last developed of the second flight feathers. When I 

 first saw this specimen a single feather of the nestling plumage remained 

 among the feathers of the head, and 1 have since found several others on 

 the sides of the neck near the shoulders. They were very pale slate- 

 gray, the one on the head having the margin well worn. — William 

 Palmer, Washington, D. C. 



Irregular Abundance of Birds in the Breeding Season in Different 

 Years at the Same Locality. — Several times of late my attention has 

 been drawn quite forcibly to the fact that birds, or at least some species, 

 are not entirely constant in their choice of a summer home, but vary the 

 location of their breeding places to some extent from year to year. For 

 this reason it does not seem safe to draw conclusions as to the abundance 

 or rarity of a given species at a given place, from the experience of a 

 single summer. As evidence of this, I may note the following discrep- 

 ancies between my own observations and those of others. But for the 

 fact that the terms 'abundant,' 'common,' 'quite common,' etc., are 

 comparative and may not mean precisely the same to two persons, many 

 more instances of this kind could, perhaps, be noted. In the following 

 cases, however, it seems as if the only possible explanation was irregu- 

 larity on the part of the birds themselves. 



In the 'Atlantic Monthly' for August, 1894, Mr. Frank Bolles writes of 

 the Red-eyed Vireo ( Vireo olivaceus~) in Cape Breton, as "not as numerous 

 as in New Hampshire, but there were enough of them to keep up a 

 running fire of conversation from one end of the island to the other." 



