'^^■5 ^ General Notes. 



121 



at Duxbury, Mass. , by Mr. Chauncej W. Chamberlain, on December 27. 

 It was found in company with Yellow-rumps {De?idrceca coronata) which, 

 as we now know, winter here regularly and in considerable numbers.— 

 William Brewster, Cambridge, Mass. 



Development of a Brood of Black-and-yellow Warblers {Den- 

 drozca maculosa'). — My co-laborer in this field, Mr. James W. Banks, desires 

 me to record the result of some observations made by him last season, of 

 the rapid growth of young Magnolia Warblers. On June 26, just at 

 dusk, a nest was discovered containing four eggs, which exhibited signs 

 of advanced incubation, and early on the following morning one of the 

 chicks had freed itself from the shell, while the others were on their way 

 out. When the nest was visited on July i, the four chicks were partially 

 fledged and on the fourth day of the month, or eight days from the time 

 they were hatched, two of the brood had left the nest and the remaining 

 pair were so large they almost filled it and were nearly in full feather. 

 While Mr. Banks stood watching them one of the chicks jumped up on 

 the edge of the nest and fluttered off" to a bush near by, and, a couple of 

 hours later on, the nest was empty and the parent and brood were seen in 

 an adjoining hedge. — Montague Chamberlain, St. jfokti, N. B. 



Capture of ^giothus linaria holboelli in the Lower Hud- 

 son Valley. — Mr. Ezra Acker, on Feb. 12, killed a specimen of this 

 large Greenland variety of the Redpoll Linnet, out of a small passing 

 flock. The following day another was captured out of a large mixed 

 flock of common Redpolls, Goldfinches, and Pine Linnets, specimens of 

 each species having been killed at the one discharge of the gun. Mr. 

 Robert Ridgway, who kindly examined the two specimens, considers 

 them typical.— A. K. Fisher, M. D., Suig Sing, N. T. 



Individual Variation in Color in the European Crossbill. — 

 At the time my recent paper on extreme individual variation went to press, 

 I was not aware that the European Crossbill had been shown to assume 

 its red, yellow, and orange plumages with the same irregularity that I 

 pointed out in our own two species. I came across a popular volume of 

 natural history at the hotel here to-day from which I learn that this was 

 done by Mi*. Yarrell, many years ago. My author in hand. Rev. J. G. 

 Wood, quotes Yarrell quite freely, but how the age of the birds was ascer- 

 tained does not appear. 



I am of course unable to leai-n, in this remote region, what may be the 

 views of modern European writers as to this matter. It is sufficiently 

 evident, however, that our own authorities either disagree with Mr. Yarrell 

 or else have overlooked his evidence. — Nathan Clifford Brown, Boerne, 

 Texas. 



The Cow Bunting wintering in Massachusetts. — On January 2, 

 1883, Mr. William Brewster and the writer secured two Cow Buntings 

 i^Molothrus ater) in Belmont, Massachusetts. Both were males, one being 

 an adult in full plumage, the other a young bird in that mottled dress 



