Vol. XIV 
ear General Notes. PHA y}| 
Brown Creeper. True, it is itself antedated by C. rufa, Bartram, 1791; 
but the present temper of the A.O. U. Committee throws Bartram out of 
the case. — ELttiott Cours, Washington, D. C. 
The Roadrunner as a Destroyer of Caterpillars. —In southern Cali- 
fornia the passion vine is everywhere infested bya red butterfly (A graulis 
vanille), the larva of which feeds extensively if not entirely upon this 
plant. So great is the damage that plants are often completely defoliated 
and become so unsightly that in some regions many have destroyed their 
vines and replaced them with other species, less desirable perhaps but less 
apt to breed a horde of pests. 
Not long since I called on a friend living in the suburbs of San Diego 
who had a large number of unusually thrifty passion vines climbing over 
his fence. Upon inquiring the reason of their freedom from what I had 
considered an inevitable pest, he informed me that a pair of Roadrunners 
(Geococcyx californicus) had for several months paid daily visits to his 
vines, climbing through them in all directions until the last caterpillar 
had been captured. 
He said that he was satisfied that several newly hatched chickens had 
gone to satisfy hungry Roadrunners on one or two occasions when the 
vines yielded less than usual, but they were welcome to a chick once in 
a while for their very valuable service in keeping in check a pest that 
none of our other native birds seem to feed upon. —A. W. ANTHONY, 
San Diego, Cal. 
How the Chimney Swift secures Twigs for its Nest. — Among some of 
the beautiful drawings of birds done by Mr. L. A. Fuertes, and submitted 
to my approval by the Messrs. Macmillan of New York, with reference to 
their publication in a work for which I am partly responsible, there was 
one which I ‘held up’ for further consideration. This represented a 
Chimney Swift in the act of snapping off a bit of twig with its feet, like a 
hawk seizing its prey. We have always supposed the bird secured the 
object with its beak, as it dashed past on wing at full speed; or atany rate 
that has been my own belief for more years than I can remember. But 
Mr. Fuertes vouched for the correctness of his representation from actual 
observation. The question being thus raised, I set it forth recently in a 
query inserted in one of our popular periodicals,! asking for information. 
I have received a number of replies, mostly corroborating the traditional 
belief, on what purports to be sufficient observation of the bird in the act. 
But Mr. Fuertes is supported in his view by Mr. Frank J. Birtwell, of 
Dorchester, Mass., from whose letter I quote: “In 1894 I spent the summer 
at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where the Swift is common, nesting in unused 
chimneys of the village. The bird flies to a tree, usually a spruce, and 
'«The Nidologist’’ for March, just to hand, contains (pp. 80, 81) several 
replies to my interrogation — and these leave the case still open! 
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