General Notes. 
187 
seen by Mr. Saunders the color of the mantle of this species is darker than 
in the darkest L . canus. From the latter its general appearance is so dif- 
ferent that they are distinguishable at a glance. 
Among the synonyms of Larus franklini are given cucullatus of Bruch, 
Lawrence, and Coues, kittlitzii and schimperi, both of Bruch. On the Pa- 
cific coast this species goes down as far as Chili, fully adult examples 
having been taken as far south as Santiago. 
Bhodostethia rosea , the rarest of this family, is known by some thirteen 
examples. With two, perhaps three, exceptions these have all been taken 
in Arctic America. The one said to have been taken in England rests on 
very questionable authority. Sabine’s Gull, on the Pacific coast, on the 
authority of Professor Steere of the University of Michigan, has been 
taken on Macebi Island, on the coast of Peru, in latitude 8° south. The 
example was in the adult plumage. 
Mr. Saunders’s paper evinces a remarkable success in disentangling the 
complicated web of European Gulls ; but to explain the great service thus 
rendered would take too much space, and would not interest most of the 
readers of the Bulletin. This is especially true of the synonymy of leucop- 
terus , argentatus, cacliinnans , — which at last takes its place as a good 
species, a synonym not of argentatus , but of leucophceus and michahellesii, — 
afjinis , ridibundus, and icthyaetus. A more complicated tangle than these 
six species presented, thanks to such splitters as Boie, Brehm, Bruch, and 
Bonaparte, it would be hard to imagine, and the service rendered by Mr. 
Saunders cannot fail to be appreciated by all who have experienced its 
need. — T. M. B. 
plated. 
The Nesting of the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher ( Empidonax jta- 
viventris). — On Monday, June 10, 1878, while collecting in company with 
Mr. B. F. Pearsall on the island of Grand Menan, I flushed a Yellow- 
bellied Flycatcher, which seemed to come from directly under my feet. 
The locality was a good-sized hummock of moss, in swampy ground at 
the edge of some low woods. For some time I was unable to find any 
signs of a nest, but finally I discovered a small hole one and a half 
inches in diameter in the side of the hummock, and on enlarging this 
opening the nest, with four eggs, lay before me. The bird, which had all 
the time been hopping around within a few feet of our heads, was at once 
shot. The cavity extended in about two inches, was about four inches in 
depth, and was lined with a very few grasses, black hair-like roots, and 
skins of berries. The eggs, four in number, are w'hite, with a very delicate 
creamy tint, which differs in its intensity in the different specimens, and 
are spotted, mostly at the larger end, with a few dots and blotches of a 
light reddish shade. 
