i8 6 
General Notes. 
Early Arrival in New England of the Least Bittern. — On 
March i of the present year while at Providence, Rhode Island, I saw a 
freshly-killed Least Bittern at the natural history store of Messrs. South- 
wick and Jencks. It was brought in by a boy who said that he shot it on 
the shore of the bay near the city. It was an adult male, thin in flesh 
even for the shadowy pattern of its race, but in very perfect plumage. — 
William Brewster, Cambridge , Mass. 
The Least Bittern in Northwestern Minnesota. — It is said in 
Dr. Coues’s “ Birds of the Northwest” that the Least Bittern ( Ardetta 
exilis') “ does not appear to be anywhere abundant.” In this vicinity is 
a small lake or pond, covering thirty or forty acres, whose very reedy 
shores furnished last summer nesting room for eighteen or twenty pairs 
of these birds. The other ponds near here, some dozen in number, each 
had their complement. So that I think I am fairly entitled to regard it as 
abundant. The nests were all placed on floating bog, a few feet from open 
water, and the eggs average larger than the measurements given in the 
above-mentioned work, specimens 1.30 inches by 1.00 inch being not 
uncommon. The habits of this bird have been compared to those of the 
Rails, but to my mind it more frequently calls up the Marsh Wren. As 
it laboriously fixes itself on the stem of a long reed, one foot above the 
other, in the position taken with such airy lightness by the Wren, one is 
reminded of the lapdog and the donkey. It climbs awkwardly and with 
much effort, foot over foot, up two neighboring reeds, until at a convenient 
height, it stands with legs wide apart, or, after a squawk or two, launches 
into the air. My first acquaintance with the bird was at Ripon, Wise., 
where it was rare and shy. Here, on the contrary, it is quite tame. It 
arrived this year May 10, making the eighty-sixth on my list of spring 
arrivals. — W. W. Cooke, White Earth , Minn. 
Occurrence of the Purple and Florida Gallinules near St. 
John, New Brunswick. — M. Chamberlain, Esq., of St. John, New 
Brunswick, has very kindly furnished me with the following notes for 
publication in the Bulletin. 
On April 6, 1881, a Purple Gallinule (PorpViyrio martinica ) was shot at 
Irishtown, a few miles west of St. John. It was taken in a meadow a 
short distance from the shore of the Bay of Fundy. A Florida Gallinule 
(Gallinula galeata) was also captured by Henry Ketchum, Esq., at Dick’s 
Lake, in September, 1880. 
There is a record (Jones, Am. Nat., IV, 253) of the occurrence of the 
Purple Gallinule at Halifax, Nova Scotia, January 30, 1870, but I cannot 
learn that the Florida Gallinule has previously been detected so far to the 
eastward as St. John. — William Brewster, Cambridge , Mass. 
The Yellow Rail (Porzana noveboracetisis ) in Massachusetts. — 
Mr. Charles I. Goodale, the Boston taxidermist, tells me that he once 
found Yellow Rails actually abundant at Plj'mouth, Massachusetts. In 
