^°'„^j\^^] General Notes. 1 89 



for fall miii^iants, I succeeded in securing a specimen of Leconte's Spar- 

 row. The bird was taken at tiie edge of the marsh, where a stream had 

 washeti up the mud, making a higher and diicr hank, ruid where, in con- 

 sequence, the grasses were thicker and less aquatic in character. The 

 specimen I obtained was a young bird, in the first plumage after the 

 nestling plumage, thus, in all probability, showing that it had been bred 

 at no very great distance from where it was taken. The date of its 

 capture was October 11, 1897. Further careful search, both on the same 

 day, and for many days thereafter, failed to reveal any more of the 

 species. — Louis Agassiz Fuertes, ////«rrt, JV. T. 



The Sea-side Sparrow on Cape Cod in Winter, and other Notes. — I 

 have been asked to report the following intei'esting records. Mr. llenrv 

 B. Bigelow and Mr. George C. Shattuck while walking over the salt marsh 

 on Sandy Neck, Barnstable, Mass., on February 9, 189S, started from the 

 grass a single Sea-side Sparrow (^Ammodramus maritimus). Mr. Bigelow 

 shot the bird at once and found it to be apparently in perfect health and 

 without any marks of any old injuries. The sexual regions being 

 badly torn by the shot, determination of the sex was impossible. 



This is the first record of the wintering of this species in New England 

 to my knowledge, for the bird probably wintered, and the capture also 

 suggests the idea that the bird probably bred during the past season. 

 Besides Mr. E. Sturtevant's records of the jDccurrence of this species at 

 Middletown, R. I. (A.uk, Vol. XIV, pp. 219 and 322) in May and July, 

 18S9, 1896, 1897, we have Mr. J. A. Farley's record of its breeding at West- 

 port, Mass. (Auk, Vol. XIV, pp. 323). Do these records signify the 

 increasing number of competent observers in the field or the movement 

 northward of the species's range from southern Rhode Island to Massa- 

 chusetts ? 



On the same day, February 7, two Scaup Ducks (^Aytkya marila iiearc- 

 ticaf) came in to the decoys put in the harbor of Barnstable, and although 

 neither of the birds were taken, Mr. Shattuck feels confident of their iden- 

 tit}' as lie knows the bird Avell. Tlie usual noi-thern limit of the Scaup 

 Duck's winter range is Long Island, N. Y. Mr. R. W. Hall, Assistant 

 in Zoology at Harvard Universitj-, tells me that he saw in Roxbui-y 

 (Boston), Mass., on December 27, 1895, on tlie banks of Jamaica Pond in 

 the shrubbery, a female Chewink {Pipilo eiytkrop/it/ialmus). This is 

 the third winter record for Massachusetts for this species and the fourth 

 for New England. — Reginald Heber Howe, Jr., Longzvood, Mass. 



Lincoln's Sparrow in New Brunswick. — On June 18, 1897, at Bright. 

 York County, New Brunswick, my attention was attracted by a bird's 

 song which reminded me both of the song of tlie Grass Finch and that 

 of the American Goldfinch yet was different from either. The following 

 dav I returned to the same place with mv gun and secured the singer, 



