190 General Notes. [April 
was caught in a steel trap, the latter having been set in a spring, where 
there were a number of small fish. When found it was dead, having been 
drowned, and its legs were more or less covered with fish scales. The trap 
was at least four or five inches below the surface of the water, which 
seems to show that the Owl must have plunged into the water in order to 
have got caught. This is the only instance in which I have known this 
species to enter the water for the purpose of securing fish.* — WILLARD 
E. Treat, Hast Hartford, Connecticut. 
Brewer’s Blackbird near New Orleans.—I have in my possession a male 
Brewer’s Blackbird (Scolecophagus cyanocephalus) in full plumage, shot a 
few miles from New Orleans on December 23, 1888. A small flock was 
seen, but only one was procured. —GusTAvVE KouHn, Mew Orleans, 
Louisiana. 
The Chestnut-collared and Lapland Longspurs on Long Island, N. Y. 
—While hunting for Lapland Longspurs on February 16, my brother, J. H. 
Hendrickson, saw a bird which, on account of white feathers in its tail 
and generally dingy appearance, he thought was a Bay-winged Sparrow. 
He approached within five or six feetand hit it with a small stone, when 
it flew a short distance and he shot it. Upon exemination I found it to be 
a Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarzus ornatus). It was found near 
the end of a filled-in, sandy road extending about six hundred feet into a 
salt marsh, and was entirely alone, no other birds being found within 
some distance of it. Upon skinning the bird I found it to be in good 
condition, slightly fat. I could not determine the sex. Upon reporting 
the above to Mr. William Dutcher, he informed me that it was not only a 
new record for Long Island (as I had supposed), but was the second 
record for the Eastern United States, the other being one taken in Massa- 
chusetts in July, 1876 (w¢de Brewer, Bull. Nuttall Ornith. Club, Vol. II, 
p- 78), and as such it will no doubt prove interesting. 
On the same day (Feb. 16) my brother found a flock of eleven Lapland 
Longspurs (Calcarius lappontcus), one of which he shot. When first 
seen they were by themselves, but when shot at became mixed with a 
flock of thirty Shore Larks which began to quarrel with them as soon as 
they alighted, evidently trying to drive them away. This made the Long- 
spurs restless and no more were shot. Next day (Sunday) my brother 
and I, armed only with an opera glass, went to look for more Longspurs. 
When coming over the edge of a small hill I flushed a flock of about a 
dozen Shore Larks, and noticed as they flew straight away from me that 
one bird in the flock had a noticeably white tail, similar to that of the 
Chestnut-collared Longspur mentioned above. This flock flew a hundred 
yards or soand alighted among a number of large boulders, and although 
I examined the ground carefully from a distance of forty yards or so (as 
{*For a similar case see Bull. Nuttall Ornith. Club, Vol II, p. 80.—ED.] 
