General Notes. 
2 47 
Colaptes auratus + C. mexicanus. — Quite a number of instances 
of specimens of Colaptes auratus showing traces of C. mexicanus coming 
to mj knowledge, I have thought it worth the while to record them. In 
this Bulletin, Vol. V, No. i, p. 46, I noted the capture of one of these 
abnormal individuals by myself at Fort Hamilton. Its black mustaches 
were sprinkled with red feathers, and its back was different from that of 
ordinary auratus , the black bars being very narrow, and the ground color 
more of a brownish-olive, nearly corresponding to Audubon’s Plate of C. 
ayresi (Birds of America, Vol. VII). Last autumn (1880) I shot two 
more “ Highholders” having a few red feathers intermixed with the black 
cheek patches. These are all the cases of this curious variation that have 
come under my personal observation, but Messrs. Bell and Wallace of 
New York furnish me with some valuable notes on the subject. Mr. Bell 
tells me he has had several such in his many years of experience as 
a taxidermist. He remembers one in particular which was remarkable 
for the deep salmon color of the parts which are golden-yellow in normal 
auratus. Nearly half of each of the maxillary patches of this specimen 
was red. It was shot in Orange Co., N. Y., or in some adjacent county. 
Mr. Wallace also says he has had a number of these varieties, and among 
them the strangest case of differentiation I have yet heard of. A few years 
ago a Colaptes was brought to him, one side of which was auratus and 
the other mexicanus. That is, one of the mustaches was black and the 
other red, and the quills and under surfaces of wings and tail on the cor- 
responding sides were respectively yellow and red. 
Mr. Ridgway, in this Bulletin, Vol. VI, No. 2, p. 121, saj T s that of two 
hundred aurati taken in the vicinity of Mount Carmel, 111 ., which he had 
examined, he detected only one aberrant specimen showing any trace of 
mexicanus. As out of thirty shot last fall at Fort Hamilton and examined 
by me two showed this variation, it may be that these mixed forms are more 
plentiful in the Atlantic States than in the interior. In view of the num- 
ber of known instances of these “half-breeds” occurring in the East we 
need not be surprised if some cis-Alleghany collector yet takes a pure 
mexicanus. — De L. Berier, Fort Hamilton , Long Island, N. T. 
Further Notes on the Labrador Gyrfalcon taken on Long 
Island, N. Y. — In the Bulletin for April, 1881, page 126, I recorded the 
capture of Falco gyrfalco obsoletus on Long Island, in Queens County, my 
information being derived from Mr. J. Wallace of New York City. Since 
then I have received a more detailed account of the matter from the gen- 
tleman above named, and to correct some doubts which have probably 
arisen as to the accuracy of my note, I make this somewhat lengthy 
statement. The bird in question was shot in the autumn of 1875, near 
Flushing, Queens Co., and brought to Mr. Wallace by two men. They 
were in haste and left saying they would return in a few days and give 
the particulars of the bird’s capture. They failed to do so, however, and 
it was nearly two years before Mr. Wallace again met them. In the mean- 
time he had pi-esented the Falcon to Mr. George A. Boardman. Mr. Wal- 
lace, knowing nothing of the bird except that it had been brought to him 
