Auk 
April 
214 General Notes. 
On Sept. 3, at night, some Plovers were heard as they passed over the 
town. On Sept. 9 a severe storm prevailed, wind east-northeast with 
heavy rain. On the loth it was still storming with wind southeast, also 
raining very hard during the first half of the day, but clearing about 
noon. No birds were noted, nor did any land, so far as I know. On 
Sept. 13 and 14 still another very severe storm prevailed at sea. On the 
morning of the 16th I visited a number of the principal game stalls in 
Faneuil Hall market, Boston, Mass. In all of them were six Golden 
Plovers, one of which was a young bird. 
No Eskimo Curlews have been received in the market from this coast 
this season, as far as I can learn, nor have I seen or know of one being 
authentically noted this season. 
A number of young blue-legged Jack Curlew (1V. hudsonicus) landed 
in Massachusetts during this storm, and a number were taken. I saw 
about thirty in the market and about a dozen were shot in Nantucket. 
During the storm high easterly gales prevailed along the southern New 
England coast on the 13th, the maximum wind velocity being 52 miles 
at Block Island, 33 miles at Boston, and 26 miles at Nantucket. This 
storm came from the sea, giving no previous warning. No Plovers or 
Eskimo Curlews could have been passing at the time, as otherwise they 
would have been forced to seek land for shelter from the elements. 
Personally I have taken but four Golden Plovers this season, two of 
which were young birds. In addition to these perhaps one dozen more 
may have been shot on Nantucket and Tuckernuck Islands. On the 
north shore of Massachusetts, at Ipswich, one of the principal sportsmen 
there informed me he had seen and taken only one Golden Plover. There 
was no landing of Plover or Eskimo Curlews in that vicinity this season. 
He thought he saw four Eskimo Curlews very high up in the air flying 
on migration. 
Some of the large game dealers in Boston, Mass., received as usual the 
past spring and summer, considerable numbers of these birds which had 
been taken in the Mississippi Valley while on their northern migration 
to their breeding grounds. Among them were large numbers of the 
Bartramian Sandpipers, which bird is already scarce as a resident on the 
New England coast. Are we not approaching the beginning of the end? 
—GerorGE H. Mackay, Wantucket, Mass. 
Validity of the Genus Lophortyx. — It is well-known that in the Galline 
the number of tail-feathers is a good clue to the genera. Excepting when 
very numerous — 20 to 32 —they are quite constant in the genera usually 
recognized, such a case as that of Coturnix, in which the rectrices are 
10 or 12, being quite unusual. Our Grouse, for example, are well marked 
in this respect, though some have as many as 20 rectrices, and are not free 
from some individual variation in the numbers. In the Odontophorine, 
a compact group of Perdicide, peculiar to America, the rectrices are 
invariably 12, except in the recently separated genus Rhynchortyx, which 
