General Notes . 
*83 
is only when a cloud of insects is discovered low down that the birds come 
within gunshot range. Often one will sweep down almost to the earth 
and, swinging on in the same ellipse, soar far up entirely out of sight. 
Measurements from dried skins of eight specimens give an average length 
of six and seven-sixteenths inches, with extremes of seven and one-half 
inches — an adult male, and five and seven-eighths inches — a young female ; 
and an average wing of six and five-sevenths inches, with extremes of 
six and seven-eighths and six and three-eighths inches. — Frank M. 
Drew, Bunker Hill, III. 
1 , - 
Plumage of the Young of Eclectus polychlorus — Dr. A. B. 
Meyer in the P. Z. S. for 1877, p. 801, says in an article on Eclectus poly- 
chlorus: ‘‘Formerly I discussed the question whether the young bird in 
both sexes is plain green or not; but I now believe that it is red in both 
sexes, i.e. bears the dress which- the female keeps during its whole life.” 
This conclusion would seem to be incorrect, since among a series of these 
birds in the possession of Prof. H. A. Ward, there is one bird so young as 
not to be fully fledged, but which is nevertheless of the same bright green 
color as the adult males. This substantiates the statement of the Rev. 
George Brown that the young birds have the same colored plumage as 
the adults.^F. A. Lucas, Rochester , N. T. 
[This is a large Parrot found in the Malacca and Papuan Islands. The 
occurrence of “young red-and-blue birds” has already been recorded (see 
Ibis for 1878). — J. Amory Jeffries.] 
An Owl’s Egg laid in Confinement. — The history of my Acadian 
Owl, given in a late number of this Bulletin,* has an interesting sequel. 
On February 4, 1882, the bird (then but nine months old) astonished its 
friends — and perhaps itself as well — by laying an egg in the bottom of its 
cage. This, when first brought to me, was of normal size and shape, but 
soft and leathery to the touch, like the egg of a turtle. One side was 
fractured ; and soon afterward the shell around the edges of the hole began 
to curl inward until, in a short time, the whole egg became shrivelled and 
distorted. Finally, in the course of a day or two, the shell crumbled and 
scaled off in small fragments leaving only the half-dried yelk and al- 
bumen. 
Of course more eggs were looked for, and in anticipation, the floor of 
the cage was lined with saw-dust and a hollow stump even supplied to 
serve as a nesting-place. But despite these attentions.the bird obstinately 
refused to gratify our hopes. For several days after the removal of her 
egg she was restless and irritable, continually flying from perch to perch, 
and fiercely attacking any one who ventured to approach her. Indeed, it 
was two or three weeks before she recovered her wonted gentleness. 
* Vol. VII, pp. 23-25. 
