General Notes. 
187 
company with a friend he killed ten specimens in a few hours. They were 
flushed from tall sedge on a salt marsh and many more were seen at the 
same time. They, however, have never since been found in the same 
locality. 
Mr. Goodale also kills one or two specimens every season at Wakefield, 
Massachusetts. He finds them, both spring and fall, when shooting Snipe 
on fresh-water meadows. — William Brewster, Cambridge , Mass. 
Exceptional Abundance of the Shoveller at Portland, Me. — 
The Shoveller ( Spatula clyfteata') is so rare a bird in Maine that I was 
not a little surprised to find five handsome males hanging in one of our 
city markets on April 18 of this year. Suspecting that the unusually 
bleak weather of the season might have driven others to the vicinity, I 
watched the markets closely for several days subsequent, and was rewarded 
by detecting two more birds, one of them a female. Four other specimens 
were received by Mr. A. Nelson, taxidermist, making a total of eleven 
birds taken between April 18 and 23. All of these, with the exception of 
one female, which was killed in a pond on Cape Elizabeth, were said to 
have been shot in Casco Bay. 
Until this year, but three instances of the Shoveller’s occurrence in this 
vicinity have come to my knowledge. In September, 1876, I examined 
two specimens which were taken on Scarborough marsh, and on April 14, 
1879, I received a female from one of the littoral islands of the same 
township. — Nathan Clifford Brown, Portland , Me. 
The Velvet Scoter at Green Bay, Wise. — A male specimen of the 
Velvet Scoter ( CEdemia fusca ) was sent to me April 23, 1881, which was 
shot at Little Suamico, on Green Bay, Wisconsin. Its capture here is a 
little out of the usual order. — Samuel W. Willard, West DeVere , Wise. 
Larus glaucus in Texas. — I procured a skin of a Gull shot by my 
friend Mr. A. Hall of Clay County, Texas, December 17, 1880. I have 
been unable to refer it to any other genus than Larus and species glaucus. 
The red spot on the under mandible was not discernible, the bird having 
been killed six weeks prior to its reception by myself. The length (skin 
measurement) is 28 inches; wing 18.25. The bill is yellowish at base 
and dark at tip ; feet, flesh colored. Sex $. The bird was shot in Red 
River while feeding upon the carcass of a skunk. Mr. Hall has seen no 
other specimen like this in Clay County, Texas. — G. H. Ragsdale, 
Gainesville , Texas. 
[This specimen of Larus glaucus is now in the collection of the Museum 
of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge. It is in immature plumage, verging 
on the adult phase. It seems not to have been previously recorded from 
south of Long Island, N. Y. — J. A. Allen.] 
The Ivory Gull ( Pagophila eburnea') at St. John, New Bruns- 
wick. — I am indebted to M. Chamberlain, Esq., for permission to announce 
the recent capture of an Ivory Gull at St. John, New Brunswick. The 
