52 General Notes. 



6cnm( ITotcs. 



The Tufted Titmouse on Staten Island, N. Y.— I shot a specimen 

 of this species {^Lofhophanes bicolor) on the 24th of August, 1881, in a 

 thick wood, a few miles south of Port Richmond, a small town on the 

 north shore of Staten Island, N. Y. — Daniel E. Moran, Brooklyn, N.T. 



Nesting of the White-bellied Wren {Tkryotkorus beivicki leiico- 

 gaster). — This Wren is abundant in Northern Arizona, where I saw it and 

 heard it singing most constantly, during the month of June, while travel- 

 ing from Fort Whipple to view the Grand Canon of the Colorado. 

 The birds were particularly numerous in the vicinity of cafions and 

 arroyos, and in the patches of red cedar and pinon pine that stretch away 

 from mountain-sides to the valley ground of the Colorado Plateau. At 

 a water-hole about midway on my journey, it so happened that my tent 

 was pitched beneath a cedar where, as I was soon satisfied by their vehe" 

 ment scolding, a pair of the Wrens were protesting against such intrusion 

 upon their privacy. In a little while, however, finding themselves un- 

 :nolested they quieted down, resumed their song at intervals, and were 

 soon after busily engaged in bringing insects to their family. Having 

 explored a deserted Woodpecker's hole, only to find it empty, I at length 

 saw one of the birds disappear in the hollow end of a blasted horizontal 

 bough about eight feet from the ground. The entrance was too narrow 

 to admit my arm, but by breaking away some of the rotten wood I at 

 length got a glimpse of the nest, and could just put a finger over the edge 

 of it far enough to feel the little birds. I should have despoiled the 

 household had there been eggs; but as it was I refrained, and for a day 

 or two was much interested in watching the happy, devoted pair, bubbling 

 over with joyous music as they assiduously cared for their little family, 

 now coming and going undisturbed by the group of men who shared the 

 luxury of this fragrant cedar shade. This was June 7 ; returning a week 

 afterward, the pretty spot was a " banquet hall deserted"; so that I did 

 not hesitate to break into the bough and remove the nest. It contained two 

 dead young ones, upon which a troop of ugly carrion-beetles were rioting 

 and feasting. The nest was quite unlike what a House Wren's would have 

 been under the same circumstances, having none of the trash with which 

 these queer birds would have surrounded it; it rested upon the horizontal 

 floor of the cavity, upon a bed of wood-mould and cedar-berries, about a 

 foot from the ragged entrance of the hollow. It was a neat structure, 

 about 4 inches across outside, by half as much in internal diameter, 

 cupped to a depth of an inch and a half. Outside was a wall of small 

 cedar twigs interlaced, and next came a layer of finely frayed inner bark 

 strips from the same tree ; but the bulk of the nest consisted of matted 



