310 General Notes. [£g 



frequent in the northern as in the southern form. Such birds, judging by 

 their remiges and wing-coverts, are not necessarily immature birds but 

 may be fully adult. 



Ridgway states (Bds. N. and M. Amer.) that a considerable number of 

 specimens from the range of iisneiv (Massachusetts, New York, etc.) are 

 indistinguishable from true americana. As far as the color goes this is 

 doubtless due to individual variation, but the writer believes that the 

 northern specimens agreeing with umericana in proportions are almost 

 always immature birds in the first nuptial plumage. In such specimens, 

 as in most other Warblers, the wing averages slightly shorter than in fully 

 adult birds, and as the bill is as large as in the adult, the relative lengths 

 of these parts thus resemble those of the southern race. If adults only of 

 the two races are compared the differences in measurements and propor- 

 tions are found to be more constant. 



There seems to be a slight average difference in coloration between 

 tisnea of the Atlantic States and the Mississippi Valley bird, which has been 

 separated as ramalina. The latter usually has the jugular band more 

 conspicuous and of a deeper black. The characters that separate these 

 two races are so slight, however, that the decision of the A. O. U. Committee 

 in rejecting ramalinai is doubtless a wise one. There is no difference in 

 proportions between the latter and usneai nor so pronounced a difference 

 in color. 



The following table shows the average measurements of males, in milli- 

 meters, according to locality and age. 



Florida and southern Georgia 



Delaware 



Northern New Jersey to Massachusetts 



Texas 



Michigan and Minnesota 



W. DeW. Miller, Amcr. 



Breeding of the Louisiana Water- Thiush (Seivrvs motacilla) in Berkshire 

 County, Massachusetts. — On the afternoon of June 2S, 1902, I was fol- 

 lowing up the course of a brook in Glendale, Berkshire County, Massachu- 

 setts, in company with my old friend and schoolmate, Daniel Chester 

 French, when we came to a secluded, shallow pond, less than a quarter of 

 an acre in extent, tying between two wooded ridges of moderate elevation. 

 It was made, a number of years ago, for the purpose of obtaining ice, by a 

 farmer living in the neighborhood who built a rude dam across the brook 

 at a point where, after winding sluggishly through what was then a grassy 



