262 5; General Notes. | [ April, 
value of the article. Twelve species of birds are enumerated 
which cross the Mexican border, and are thus new to our avi- 
fauna, 
AN InsecT BORER IN PowDER Barrers.— We have received 
specimens of a Callidium (probably C. variabile), the larva of 
which: have been found by Capt. McGinnis, U.S.A., to injure the 
hickory hoops of the powder barrels of the St. Louis Powder 
Depot. So injurious has this gnat proved that no inconsiderable 
sum is now annually spent in re-coopering barrels in order to 
make good the injury thus done. Means have been taken to 
prevent the ravages of the insects. ; 
A LARGE Saw-FisH.—In a communication from Samuel A. 
Shields, Jr., we are informed that the saw-fish (Pristis) which was 
caught in Grassy sound, opposite Five-mile beach, and about 
seven miles from Cape May city, measured sixteen feet in length, 
and six feet from tip to tip of the pectorals fins; its weight when 
caught was seven hundred pounds. The “saw” was four feet in 
length with twenty-four teeth on one side and twenty-five on the 
WRENS AND THE BEE Motu. — My bees have at times suf- 
fered a little from the ravages of the moth. But in some seasons 
I have had several pairs of wrens nesting in boxes suspended 
from trees near my apiary, and I have noticed that during these 
years the moths are always scarce and but seldom seen. hile 
my observation has not been accurate and systematic enough to 
enable me to say positively that the little birds, by catching the 
winged insects, prevented them from depositing their eggs in the 
hives, and thus saved the bees from the destructive ravages of the 
worms, I have always belived they were entitled to the fullest 
credit in that direction. I am so confident of their good offices, 
that I shall try and provide all that come to my premises with 
nesting-boxes, though I am well aware that the best possible pro- 
tection is to keep the colonies of bees in the strongest possible 
‘condition. But I wish to give my feathered friends the amplest 
credit for all the good they do, and render all of the social kinds 
every assistance in my power.—Chas, Aldrich, Webster city, Lowa, 
1878. 
An Owt’s Revenct.—In a village of the canton of Vaud, the 
inhabitants of a comfortable dwelling house discovered, last 
April, that a family of owls had taken up their abode under the 
same roof with them. There was a hole in the wall of the gable 
end about twenty feet from the ground, and in it these birds had 
made their nest. It was the first year that they had built in that 
ace. 
A young farmer and three or four of his friends who had fre- 
quently observed the owls entering and flying out of the cavity, | 
