408 General Notes. | aur 
Purple Martins that I watched near North Adams, Mass., in 1895, and 
Mr. Brewster tells me that he founda pair of these birds breeding ina 
similar situation in Colebrook, N. H., in 1896. Probably many of the 
readers of ‘The Auk’ who live in a Martin region are familiar with this 
nesting habit of the Martin, though I do not remember to have seen any 
mention of it in print. The late Frank Bolles (‘ Boston Post,’ Feb. 3, 
1891) facetiously remarked that the House Sparrow’s propensity to build 
its nest and rear its young “onthe edge of Hades” (wzz., in electric- 
lamp reflectors) was sufficient evidence that it was the offspring of evil and 
justly under the ban of the Commonwealth. I had always deemed this a 
just count against the Sparrow, until I discerned the same disposition in 
our own favorite Martin! I hope the lamp-tenders of Vergennes discrim- 
inate between Martins and Sparrows in their daily visits to the lamps. — 
WALTER Faxon, Museum of Comparative Zovlogy, Cambridge, Mass. 
The Tree Swallow Breeding in -Virginia.— The second edition of the 
A. O. U. Check-List gives the breeding range of Tackyczneta bicolor as 
“« breeding from the Fur Countries south to New Jersey,” etc. Dr. Rives 
in his ‘Birds of the Virginias,’ page 77, says of this species: ‘‘ Common 
summer resident of the Tidewater region from April to September, but 
rare away from the rivers.” He mentions no instance of its breeding, 
however. Mr. E. J. Brown, formerly of Washington, tells me that in 
May, 1894, he found a nest containing eggs, on Smith’s Island, Virginia. 
Mr. P. H. Aylett, of Aylett, King William County, Virginia, wrote me 
some years ago about a pair which reared their young one summer at that 
place. I afterwards saw the site—a cherry stump in a meadow. The 
birds are fairly numerous on Smith’s Island in summer, and I found a 
nest containing three young, in a hollow tree near the ocean beach, on 
June 10, 1897.— WiLL1Am PALMER, Washington, D. C. 
Rough-winged Swallows (Stelgidopteryx serripennis) in Greene and 
Ulster Counties, N. Y.—On May 29, 1897, I found a pair of Rough- 
winged Swallows beginning to build in Palenville, Greene County, June 
11. The nest with six eggs was procured. At Quarryville (about five 
miles south of Palenville, being in the extreme northern part of Ulster 
County) there is a small colony of these birds breeding regularly every 
year, in the crevices of the rocks. Here I took a male specimen June 27, 
1896, and a nest containing five eggs June.29, 1897. These specimens were 
identified by Mr. Frank M. Chapman.—S. H. Cuuss, Wew Vork City. 
Peculiar Nesting of the Maryland Yellow-throat.— While collecting 
in a large slough in Jackson County, Minnesota, on June 9, 1897, amid 
the green rushes where Long- and Short-billed Marsh Wrens were breed- 
ing, I ran across a pair of Yellow-throats (Geothlyfis trichas) in some 
high rushes in about four feet of water, and upon investigating I found 
the nest placed almost level with the water in a thick clump of cat-tails, 
over fifty feet from shore, and right in the midst of a colony of Marsh 
