116 General Notes. 



General ^0tr^» 



Oi.iVE-BACKED Thrush (Turrhis swai7isoni) in Texas. — I col- 

 lected at Gainesville, Texas, May 10, 1878, a Thrush which I marked 

 Turdus swainsoiii, after close examination, having pi'eviously noted Dr. 

 Coues's remark, " not recorded from Southwestern U. S." Professor 

 Snow mentions its rarity in Kansas. Dr. J. C. Merrill, Mr. George B. 

 Sennett, and Lieutenant McCauley omit it from their lists of Texas birds. 

 1 sent a box of birds to Mr. Greene Smith, of Peterboi'o', N. Y., among 

 them being the specimen in question, requesting Mi'. Smith to notify me 

 if they were correctly named. He stated in reply that Mr. J. G. Bell, 

 of New York, agreed with him upon the identification of the Thrush. 

 I saw several of the birds at the time the specimen in question was se- 

 cured. — G. H. Ragsdale, Gainesville, Tex. 



Albinism in the Tufted Titmouse. — In his article on " Albinism 

 and Melanism in North American Birds" (this Bulletin, January, 1879, 

 pp. 27-30), Mr. Ruthven Deane records the occurrence of a partially 

 albinotic specimen of the Black-capped Titmouse, with the remark that 

 it is "the only instance of albinism occurring among the Paridce" of 

 which he has heard. It may be of interest to note in this connection, 

 that the writer's collection contains two examples of the Tufted Titmouse 

 (^LopliopTianes bicolor) which illustrate this abnormal condition. In one 

 of these (female, November 29, 187 7) nine of the rectrices are entirely 

 white, one has a white blotch at the distal end, and the other two are 

 normal. The order of arrangement is as follows, beginning at the left 

 side : 3 white, 1 normal, 3 white, 1 normal, 1 white, 1 blotched, 2 white ; 

 and owing to the distribution of the gray feathers towards the centre, the 

 bird when flying presented a somewhat striking resemblance to the Black 

 Snowbird (Junco hyemalis). The second specimen of L. hicolor (male, 

 March 22, 1874) has several white feathers scattered through the black 

 of the forehead. — Frank W. Langdon, Madisonville, Hamilton Co., 0. 



Hooded Warbler in Western New York. — This beautiful spe- 

 cies has been noted as of not uncommon occurrence near Riverdale, N. Y. 

 (Bull. Nut. Orn. Club, Vol. Ill, p. 130), and as of rare occurrence in 

 Lewis County, N. Y. (Bull. Nut. Orn. Club, Vol. IV, p. 7). From nearly 

 three months' study of the bird in Northern Cayuga and Wayne Counties 

 (N. Y.), we are able to give a pretty correct account of its occurrence in 

 this section. We first met with the bird July 16, 1878, in the woods bor- 

 dering the shore of Lake Ontario, near Fair Haven. Our attention was 

 attracted by a loud alarm note, not unlike that of the Golden-crowned 

 Thrush (Siurus auricapillus). We secured the female on the spot, the 



