~ species of this family attain their development late in the summer . 
We General Notes. [March, 
above the trees. After they reached the creek near A. T. Wik 
liams’ farm, large numbers of them lit in the trees and collected 
close together. Parties with shot-guns went in among them and 
killed a number, but the hawks seemed tired and determined to 
resting about three hours they rose again, forming great circles 7 
often interlacing each other, and pursued their flight toward the 
south. The specimens killed and examined show that they were : 
not quite so large as hen-hawks, and they were not prairie-hawks. 
R. W. Maid, who witnessed this extraordinary sight at a point. 
some eight miles distant, says they were “quail-hawks,” and that 
as the quails begun to leave the country, they were in pursuit. : 
Many of the hunters who were out looking for birds tell us that . 
they saw hundreds of quail in the immediate neighborhood of. 
the hawks, but they refused to fly, and ran, as if in terror, to the ) 
thickest parts of the brush. That there were an immense number 
of hawks is shown by the fact that no one could see them all at 
. once, though they were flying very high; and by the fact that they 
were seen at about the same hour by persons eight and ten miles: 
apart.— California paper— Communicated by R. E. C. Stearns. 
A Texan CuirF Froc.—G. W. Marnock has recently discov- 
ered in south-western Texas a new species of the genus Lithodytes, 
which Prof. Cope calls Z. /airans. It lives in fissures in the lime- 
stone cliffs that stretch across that section of the state. Accord- 
-ing to Mr. Marnock the eggs hatch out in the winter, and the 
tadpoles live in the rainwater which is caught i in the shallow holes 
in the rocks, far from the creeks. During the winter the adults 
are very noisy, the rocks resounding in the evening with their dog- 
like bark. The noise is supposed by the country people to be 
made by lizards, especially the Gerrhonotus infernalis which oc- 
curs in the same region. Lithodytes Cope, embraces many other — 
species, from Mexico and South PERA It is referred to the 
Cystignathide. 
OCCURRENCE OF THE PHYLLOPOD EuBRANCHIPUS IN WINTER.— 
Specimens of adult male and female rentan vernalis Ver- 
rill, were brought, on January roth, into the Museum of the 
Peabody Academy of Science, from Danek Mass., by Mr. John 
H. Cook. Mr. John Sears, an observing man, who saw these 
specimens, assures me that he has found similar ones in Danvers — 
in early winter cosa ed when the ice is forming. It has also ; 
— : and “oes in the autuna. S. Packard, Fr. 
