General Notes. 187 



company with a friend he killed ten specimens in a lew hours. They were 

 flushed from fall sedge on a salt marsh and many more were seen at the 

 same time. They, however, have never since been found in the same 

 locality. 



Mr. Goodale also kills one or two specimens every season at Wakefield, 

 Massachusetts. He finds them, both spring and fall, when shooting Snipe 

 on fresh-water meadows. — William Brewster, Cambridge, Mass. 



Exceptional Abundance of the Shoveller at Portland, Me. — 

 The Shoveller {Spatula clypcata) is so rare a bird in Maine that I was 

 not a little surprised to find five handsome males hanging in one of our 

 city markets on April iS of this year. Suspecting that the unusually 

 bleak weather of the season might have driven others to the vicinitv, I 

 watched the markets closely for several days subsequent, and was rewarded 

 by detecting two more birds, one of them a female. Four other specimens 

 were received by Mr. A. Nelson, taxidermist, making a total of eleven 

 birds taken between April iS and 23. All of these, with the exception of 

 one female, which was killed in a pond on Cape Elizabeth, were said to 

 have been shot in Casco Bay. 



Until this year, but three instances of the Shoveller's occurrence in this 

 vicinity have come to my knowledge. In September, 1S76, I examined 

 two specimens which were taken on Scarborough marsh, and on April 14, 

 1S79, I received a female from one of the littoral islands of the same 

 township. — Nathan Clifford Brown. Portland, Me. 



The Velvet Scoter at Green Bay, Wise. — A male specimen of the 

 Velvet Scoter (CEdemia fusca) was sent to me April 23, 1SS1. which was 

 shot at Little Suamico, on Green Btiy. Wisconsin. Its capture here is a 

 little out of the usual order. — Samuel W. Willard. West L>eVcre ; Wise. 



Larus glaucus in Texas. — I procured a skin of a Gull shot by my 

 friend Mr. A. Hall of Clay County, Texas, December 17, 1880. I have 

 been unable to refer it to any other genus than Larus and species glaucus. 

 The red spot on the under mandible was not discernible, the bird having 

 been killed six weeks prior to its reception by myself. The length (skin 

 measurement) is 2S inches; wing 1S.25. The bill is yellowish at base 

 and dark at tip ; feet, flesh colored. Sex £. The bird was shot in Red 

 River while feeding upon the carcass of a skunk. Mr. Hall has seen no 

 other specimen like this in Clay County, Texas. — G. H. Ragsdale, 

 Gainesville, Tc <cas. 



[This specimen of Lams glaucus is now in the collection ol" the Museum 

 of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge. It is in immature plumage, verging 

 on the adult phase. It seems not to have been previously recorded from 

 south of Long Island. N. Y. — J. A. Allen.] 



The Ivory Gull (Pagop/n'la el>ur?ica) at St. John. New Bruns- 

 wick. — lam indebted to M. Chamberlain, Esq.. for permission to announce 

 the recent capture of an Ivory Gnll at St. John. New Brunswick. The 



