- opinion was expressed by old residents of the place, that 
706 General Notes. | November, 
towhee bunting, Baltimore oriole, orchard oriole, white-eyed vireo, 
red-eyed vireo, fly catchers, king bird, cuckoo, etc. e also 
states that in his grounds the red squirrel is a great plunderer of 
the eggs of the birds. 
July 8—The sparrows in Mr. Upson’s grounds have finally 
regained possession of their box. Mr. Upson informs me ‘that 
they never made a direct attack upon the martins, but watched 
the box continuously for many weeks, and at every possible oppor- 
tunity carried nest-building materials into it, until the patience of 
the martins was exhausted, their associates were called together in 
consultation, and the box abandoned.—M. C. Read, Budson, O. 
-= DESTRUCTIVENESS OF ENGLISH SPARROWS.—I am informed by 
Mr. John M. Shorten, of Cincinnati, Ohio, of a humming-bird 
brought to him to be mounted, which had been killed by English 
sparrows. A friend of Mr. Shorten witnessed the attempts of 
the pests to destroy the little hummer, but unfortunately did 
not succeed in rescuing it until life was nearly extinct—L/hott 
Coues, Washington. 
Curious HABIT oF THE ENGLISH SPARROW.—I have recently 
noticed what seemed to me a curious habit of our English spar- 
row. On several occasions whilst walking through the city, I 
have seen them take potato bugs and other insects when on the 
wing, after the fashion of swallows. 
I have also repeatedly noticed these sparrows climbing tree 
trunks in spirals exactly like a creeper, stopping at intervals to 
pick up insects and the nests of our common yellow caterpillar 
from the interstices of the bark. Sometimes the bird would flut- 
ter to the ground and reascend, sometimes go from the ground 
to the lower branches and then try another tree.—f. R. Ti ay- 
lor, MD. 
SwaLtows FEEDING on BayBerries.—During a visit at Beach 
Haven, N. J., I noticed, September 10, 1878, great flocks of 
swallows, which I took to be Cotyle riparia. a! 
I saw them alighting by millions on the bare sand flats, whole 
acres being covered at once; some coming, others going, and 
all as they sat, facing the wind. . : 
The ground from which they had just flown was, of course, 
dotted with their freshly dropped excrement, and I was astonished 
to find therein the hard seeds of the bayberry (Myrica cerifera). 
I at first refused to believe the obvious inference, supposing it to 
be a settled fact in natural history that swallows were wholly 
insectivorous, But from further observation the conclusion 
seemed inevitable that they had fed upon the bayberries. * 
learned, moreover, that they had been seen to alight upon the 
bushes, which were afterwards found to be stripped; an k : 
to 
wallows were attracted there by the berries. I was anxious wo 
