General Notes. 191 



a male Larus pMlcufelphia, shot on the Neosho River at this place on April 

 18, 1879. This is the first notice of its appearance in the State, but, as 

 Dr. Coues, in " Birds of the Northwest," says: " No one of our species is 

 more widely dispersed than this. Go where we may in North America, the 

 pretty bird may be seen at one or another season, if we are not too far 

 from any considerable body of water," I am led to believe its occurrence 

 not exceptional, and that it has heretofore been taken for L. frankiiui, a 

 bird which it somewhat resembles in both color and markings, and being 

 of nearly the same size it would readily be taken for it by the casual ob- 

 server. — N. S. Goss, Neosho Falls, Kan. 



The Booby Gannet {Suln fiber) in Massachusetts. — In my Cata- 

 logue of the Birds of New England, I felt constrained to put the Booby Gan- 

 net in the purgatory of the "not proven." It had been mentioned by Mr. 

 Putnam, but all traces of evidence to authorize its retention had been lost. 

 It had also been given in Mr. Linsley's list, but erroneously. It is not a 

 species whose appearance could be looked for with any confidence, but 

 then the list of Massachusetts birds abounds in the appearance of quite a 

 number of such unlooked for visitors. On the 17th of September, 1878, a 

 fine male specimen of the Sula fiber was shot on Cape Cod, and brought 

 to the Boston market. It is now in the ])ossession of my neighbors, 

 Edward O. and Outram Bangs. — T. M. Brewer, Boston, Mass. 



A Word in Defence. — To the Publishers of the Nuttall Bulletin : — 

 Inasmuch as the pages of the Bulletin have given to a correspondent 

 full liberty to make against the undersigned a personal accusation which 

 he was utterly unconscious of having deserved, he trusts he may at least 

 be permitted to make a brief defence. If anj' impartial reader of the 

 Bulletin imagines that the undersigned deserves the double charge of 

 untruthfulness and aggressiveness, made against him on p. 75, Vol. IV, 

 all he asks is that, in simple justice to the party thus accused, said 

 reader will not take the accuser's word for it all, but will examine into 

 the matter, and judge for himself after a full examination of all the facts. 

 Let this impartial reader first turn to a paper published in the Essex In- 

 stitute Proceedings, 18G8, purporting to be a "Catalogue of the Birds of 

 North America contained in the Museum of the Essex Institute," with 

 which is incorporated " A List of the Bii'ds of New Enghlnd," etc., and 

 let him open at page 3. He Avill there find the following unmistakable 

 clue to what the writer himself considers a New England bird : " In the 

 following list the New England species are given in Italics, and those con- 

 tamed in the Museum of the Institute are followed by the numbers and 

 localities of the specimens in the collection. All other North American 

 species represented in the Museum are printed in Roman.'" 



Let the impartial reader proceed to carefully examine this catalogue, 

 beginning with Catharles aura, on page 5, and thence to page 64. He 

 will find some three hundred and thirty-two birds, more or less, each given 



