62 General Notes. 



I noted a habit of strutting and similar maneuvering in these birds which 

 I have never seen in Bartram's Tattler. My attention was first attracted 

 bv the white lining of the wing as the bird lav on one side stretching the 

 wing straight up in the air; on approaching nearer I saw several others 

 near by acting in the same ludicrous manner. One would raise the feath- 

 ers and strut up to another as though they were going to fight, and I think 

 they did sometimes strike at each other as game cocks do. Another 

 would run up to one of its companions and stand on tip-toe with both 

 wings raised high in the air as if challenging a contest; after standing 

 still for an instant it would then drop its wings and go to feeding as 

 quietly as before. I regretted that I had such a limited opportunity for 

 making notes upon this truly interesting species. 



Dr. Merrill says that the same elates and localities apply to T. rufescens 

 as to Actituriis bartramius. The latter, however, arrives in Cooke County 

 as early as March 27, which is about four weeks earlier than I have no- 

 ted the Buff-breasts. Both species are very tame and mingle freely 

 together while feeding. 



Mr. A. Hall, of East Rockport, Ohio, informs me that he met with a 

 small flock of these birds in riding over the prairies in Nebraska, May iS. 

 18S0. associated with A. bartramius. They were very tame, allowing so 

 near an approach that they might have been easily killed with stones. 

 The several specimens obtained were all females. He adds that he ob- 

 served no strutting or fighting, such as I had described to him as seen bv 

 me in Texas. — G. II. RAGSDALE, Gainesville. Texas. 



A Second Mass vchusetts Specimen of the Clapper Rail (A'al- 

 lus longirostris'). — Mr. Arthur Smith has shown me a fine specimen of 

 the Clapper Rail which he shot late in October, 1879. at Gurnet Point, 

 Plymouth, Massachusetts. It is a dark colored example in full fall 

 plumage. It was killed on a salt marsh where another large Rail supposed 

 to be of the same species was seen at the same time. After the expunging 

 of the old-time records the Clapper Rail was first reinstated as a bird of 

 Massachusetts by Mr. H. A. Purdie in this Bulletin for January, 1S77. A 

 year later Dr. Brewer published* a notice of what would at first reading seem 

 to be a second specimen, for no reference is made to Mr. Purdie's previous 

 record and the date of capture is given as May. 1876; but upon looking 

 up the bird in the " New England Collection " of the Boston Society I 

 find it to be the same as that upon which Mr. Purdie based his data. 



Oddly enough Dr. Brewer apparently makes a similar blunder with 

 Rallus elegans when he gives a specimen (1. c.) as " shot in Nahant in the 

 spring of 1876," with the remark that there is " no previous record for 

 New England, except West Haven, Conn." The latter statement is 

 obviously incorrect, for the presence of the King Rail in Massachusetts 

 had been made known by Mr. Purdief a year previously, and, if I am not 



*" Notes on certain species of New England Birds with Additions to his Catalogue of 

 the Birds of New England. By T. M. Brewer." Proc. of the Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist., 

 Vol. XIX, Feb. 6, 1878. 



t Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, Vol. II, Jan., 1877, p. 22. 



