General Notes. 243 



ley, in 1843, in his Catalogue of the Birds of Connecticut ; but since 

 then writers have considered that it was given without sufficient proof. 



Under date of August 20, 1879, Mr. Charles I. Goodale writes me that 

 three specimens of the Black Skimmer were shot at Sandwich, Cape Cod, 

 Mass., on the 19th inst., and that the next day a fourth specimen was killed 

 off Pettock's Island, Boston Harbor, which latter bird he has preserved. 



My friend, Mr. Geo. A. Boardman, of Milltown, St. Stephens, N. B., 

 under date of 31st August, 1879, writes me that there had been a flight 

 of Skimmers in his locality, and that seven specimens had been killed 

 off Grand Menan and Campobello Island, and that they were seen at St. 

 Andrews, at the head of Passamaquoddy Bay. On the same date, while 

 sailing some ten miles from shore off Saco, Maine, I saw a single bird, un- 

 doubtedly of this species, flying rapidly along the surface of the water. 



Is it not a little strange that a bird that has escaped our observations for 

 years should appear so suddenly, and at various points along the coast 

 from Cape Cod to the Bay of Fundy ? — Ruth vex Deane, Cambridge, 

 Mass. 



The Black Skimmer in Massachusetts. — Prof. Baird, in a letter 

 dated August 23, informs me that, having occasion to visit Wood's HoU 

 (Falmouth, Mass.) a few days previous, he saw there a young example of 

 Rynchops nigra, which had been shot at that place on the 19th of that 

 month, by a son of Rev. Dr. Hiram Carleton, an Episcopal minister resi- 

 dent in the village. This example is to be presented to the New Eng- 

 land Collection of the Boston Society of Natural History. — T. M. 

 Brewer, Boston, Mass. 



Occurrence of the Caspian Tern (^Sterna caspia} upon the 

 Coast of Virginia. — Until very recently, this, the largest of the 

 Terns, has been considered as an exclusively Northern species along our 

 coast, and even its winter limits have been placed at a point no farther 

 south than New Jersey. Sennett's discovery, therefore, of the species on 

 the Texan coast, where, as he informs me, he had every reason to believe 

 it was about to breed, was a surprise. The truth is, our ideas respecting 

 its distribution have doubtless been very erroneous, and I suspect that this 

 species has more than once been observed along our Southern coast and 

 reported as the Royal Tern. Be that as it may, I now have the satisfac- 

 tion of recoi'ding the fact that Mr. Ridgway and myself have found the 

 Caspian Tern breeding on Cobb's Island, off the coast of Virginia, where, 

 July 29, the present season, we took a fine pair of adults with their 

 two downy young. 



How numerous the species is in this locality we cannot at present state, 

 as our brief visit did not permit a by any means full exploration of this 

 island, to say nothing of the several others adjacent, which may be equally 

 well, perhaps better, fitted to afford it shelter. 



The pair taken had certainly isolated themselves from their own kind, 



