VO 'i9of VI ] General Notes. 311 



meadow, it raced down a rather steep incline between well defined banks 

 overgrown with mountain laurel and densely shaded by trees of various 

 kinds. As we approached the pond we heard a Water-Thrush chirping 

 sharply. A moment later it appeared at the edge of a thicket with some- 

 thing in its bill which looked like a large grub but which did not prevent it 

 from continuing to utter its metallic note, at short, regular intervals. It 

 was soon joined by its mate, the male, I thought. He, also, chirped but less 

 anxiously and frequently than the other. Both birds now began flitting 

 close about us, enabling us to make sure that they were Louisiana, and not 

 Northern, Water-Thrushes. They came, indeed, so very near and into 

 lights so favorable for revealing their characteristic color and markings that 

 we were left in no doubt whatever as to their identity. After watching 

 them for several minutes we advanced and almost immediately discovered 

 their nest, which was within twenty feet of where we first saw them. It 

 contained six young, well feathered and almost large enough to fly although 

 they kept their eyes tight shut while we were looking at them, perhaps in 

 the hope that by so doing they might escape notice. They crowded the 

 nest to its utmost capacity and the coloring of their upper parts — a rich, 

 deep, seal brown — closely matched that of the mud-soaked leaves which 

 formed its outer surface. It was the largest nest of a Water-Thrush that 

 I have ever examined. The crown of a man's hat would not have held 

 half its total bulk. Its situation, also, was somewhat unusual for it was 

 placed on the side of a shallow pit which had been dug at the base of a 

 bank to obtain earth for the construction of the dam. The rear wall of 

 this excavation was vertical — or even overhanging — at the top at several 

 points, but the birds had selected a place where it merely sloped steeply 

 downward and outward and had here built their nest on a slight projection 

 or knob scarce a foot above the level ground beneath, and wholly un- 

 sheltered above, either from observation or from the weather. I did not 

 return to the spot that summer but I have since revisited it almost every 

 year, about the same season, without obtaining evidence, however, that 

 the birds have again nested there or, indeed, anywhere in the immediate 

 neighborhood. 



Mr. Walter Faxon, to whom I mentioned the above described experience 

 not long after it had occurred, wrote me on October 14, 1902, as follows: 

 "If you record the Southern Water-Thrush's nest (as I hope you will) you 

 might take the occasion also to mention that I found a male [of this species] 

 still in song on the 8th of June, 1901, at Richmond Pond, on the line 

 between the townships of Richmond and Pittsfield." Doubtless this bird 

 is distributed well over the southern half of Berkshire County. — William 

 Brewster, Cambridge, Mass. 



Concerning Thryomanes bewicki cryptus in Colorado. — Merritt Cary, in 

 'The Auk' for April, 1909, p. 185, records Thryomanes bewicki cryptus from 

 Shell Rock Canon, in the northwest corner of Baca County, although the 

 specimen was not secured, and was merely supposed to belong to this form, 



