The Blde-grat Gnatcatcheb {PoUoptila carulea) in Massachu- 

 setts. — Through the kindness of Mr. Arthur Smith of Brookline I am 

 enabled to add this species to our list of Massachusetts Birds. On the 18th 

 of November, 1877, he noticed a bird flying about in a small orchard at 

 Chatham (Cape Cod), but was unable to identify it, and failed to procure 

 the specimen. A few days later his friend, Mr. Stephen Decatur, shot a 

 female P. carulea in the same locality, which was undoubtedly the same 

 specimen, as Mr. Smith has preserved it and recognizes it as the species 

 seen by himself. 



A few specimens have been taken in Rhode Island, though it is but re- 

 cently that the Gnatcatcher has been recorded as a bird of New England. 



— EuTHVEH" Deanb, Cambridge, Mass. 



«uU. N.O.O. 3, Jaa..ia78.p, y^^T 



The Blue-grat Gnatcatcher {PoUoptila cmrulea) in Massachusetts. 



— Among a number of mounted birds presented to the New England col- 

 lection of the Boston Society of Natural History by Mr. F. I. C. Swift of 

 Falmouth, Mass., is an adult male specimen of the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. 

 This is the second record of its occurrence, the first specimen having been 

 taken at Chatham, November, 1877 (Nutt. Bull., Ill, p. 45). It appears, 

 by the letter of Mr. Swift, that his specimen was taken in the same part 

 of the State' one month later. In answer to my letter of inquiry, Mr. Swift 

 writes : " I shot it on the 18th day of December last, in a line of low 

 bushes skirting a fresh-water pond (in Falmouth) which separated the 

 same from an old field thickly studded with pines of several varieties and 

 about ten years' growth. The locality was in a southern exposure, and I 

 think there was no ice at that time on the pond." — T. M. Brewer, Bos- 

 ton, Mass. Bull N.O.O. 3, July. 1878, p. /V7 



