Il6 General Azotes. [January 



Penn., on the edge of a dense swamp. It diflers from the type in being 

 more washed with yellow below, and olive above. Dr. Fisher (to whom 

 the bird was sent for indentification) writes that it closelj' resembles his 

 specimen from Englewood, N. J. (See Auk, IV, p. 348).— VVitmer 

 Stone, Gennaitto-Mii, Pa. 



The Yellow-breasted Chat Breeding in Maiden, Mass. — On June 2, 

 1SS7. while exploring a large tract of wooded swamp in the eastern part of 

 Maiden, I was so fortunate as to discover a nest of the Yellow-breasted 

 Chat {Icteria virens). The bird was sitting when I approached the nest 

 which was almost completely concealed by the thickly-clustering leaves 

 of a dense, stunted witch-hazel bush growing in a partially cleared tract 

 of swamp. She sat very close, and made little complaint when she flew. 

 The nest held five eggs, the full complement, which I found to have been 

 incubated a few days. I visited the nest several times, nearly always finding 

 both parent birds near it. A brood of three was successfully reared, and 

 left the nest on June 19. The nest is now in my possession. It was 

 built three and a half feet from the ground, and is very thick-walled and 

 deep. On June 29 and 30 I saw a Chat that might have been the male of 

 this pair. On both occasions he was in a dense thicket fully a mile from 

 the nest. — H. P. Johnson, Everett. Mass. 



Sylvania mitrata at Germantown, Pennsylvania, in November. — On 



November 19, 1SS7, Mr. Herbert Brown, of Germantown, presented me 

 with a Warbler that he had just shot, and which proved to be a Hooded 

 Warbler {Sylvania mitrata^ in immature plumage. The bird was taken 

 in a cabbage patch where it was apparently feeding on insects. — Witmer 

 Stone, Gerviantozvn. Pa. 



On the Nesting of Palmer's Thrasher.— In 'The Auk,' Vol. IV, No. 2, 

 Col. N. S. Goss asks: ''What constitutes a full set of eggs.?" In reply I 

 offer no suggestions, but pass my observations, which were carefully and 

 conscientiously made, to the more mature judgment of others. 



Among the birds most common on the cactus-covered plains of Arizona, 

 is Palmer's Thrasher (//. r. /rt/;«e;'/). I particularly speak of this bird 

 because of my long fixmiliarity with it. From observations made in 18S5 

 and iSSS I was led to believe that three eggs constituted a full set, but my 

 oological notes of 1887 on this particular point are much at variance with 

 those of the two preceding years. 



March 6, 1885, I fonnd a nest of this bird containing four young suffi- 

 ciently feathered to fly. I secured several nests containing eggs — generally 

 three — but four was no uncommon number. I also noted other nests con- 

 taining a like number of young, but none of the latter so far advanced as 

 the ones first mentioned. By the 13th nesting was well under way, not 

 only with the fahneri, hnt also with the Bendire's Thrasher (//. bendirei) 

 and Cactus Wren (C. brunneicafillus~). I cite these additional cases as 

 proof of the early nesting of birds thatyear. Throughout the next several 



