398 



General Notes. [October 



trict extant, except those on which Coues and Prentiss had evidently 

 entered the species, and which differed from carolinensis only on the 

 label; (3) the improbability that, if such accurate observers as our authors 

 had proved themselves to be, had ever seen an atricapillus they would 

 allow a carolinensis afterwards to bear a wrong label. 



In the severe winter of 1878-79, Mr. William Palmer obtained several 

 specimens of atricafillus in the District, and now Coues and Prentiss 

 replace the bird, remarking that "Mr. Jouy subtracted the species wrongly, 

 as now appears" (p. 9) ; and again (p. 37), "in the original edition we 

 gave this species as a winter resident, and correctly so, though the name 

 has recently been expunged from the list by Mr. Jouy (Cat. B. of D. C, 

 1877.) ... It seems that after all the two boys may have been right in stat- 

 ing, as they did with hesitation in 1862, that P. carolinensis is the ordi- 

 nary summer Tit; and that specimens indistinguishable from ordinary 

 rti'r/crtjii/7/?^s occur in winter." If any hesitation was felt by the authors 

 in 1862, they fail to show it in their text, but entered both species on an 

 equal footing as summer or winter resident. And they perpetuate the 

 error in the pi-esent edition, instead of placing atricapillus among the 

 rare winter stragglers, and carolinensis as a permanent resident. 



Had the authors asked for general notes from even the few collectors 

 they did consult, they could ftot have kept some of their species so rare as 

 they did, their unique specimen of Cape May Warbler, for instance, being 

 duplicated some years before the phenomenal season of 1882. 



As purely local lists draw their chief scientific value from the record 

 they afford of the geographical distribution of species, and their principal 

 interest from the amount of progress in investigation they mark, it is to 

 be hoped that the next list may be compiled by some one not interested 

 in keeping work done nearly a quarter of a century ago from becoming 

 antiquated, or willing to rest on ever so well earned laurels. — L. M. 

 McCoRMiCK, U. S. Nat. Museum, Washington., D. C. 



Notes on Certain Birds observed on a Voyage from Liverpool to 

 Quebec in September, 1883.^ — About the middle of September, 1883, I 

 left England for Canada, and when far out on the ocean, was agreeably 

 surprised to notice spi^eral well-known species of birds flying around and 

 alighting on the rigging of the vessel. It may interest the readers of 

 ' The Auk ' to hear something of these migrants ; as although it probably 

 often happens that birds are met with by vessels crossing the Atlantic at 

 that period of the year, there may be no passengers on board who take 

 sufficient interest to note the various species. 



The first bird that joined company with our vessel was a common 

 British Hawk, the Kestril ( Falco tinmiticulus) ; this was on September 

 23, when we were about 500 miles from the Irish coast, in fine and com- 

 paratively calm weather. It did not stay with us long; but on the fol- 

 lowing day, Sept. 24, several other birds appeared, viz., three Hawks, a 

 Pied Wagtail {Motacilla yarrelli), and two Saxicolce (probably Saxicola 

 (enatitke, the Wheatear). We were now nearly a thousand miles from 



