General Notes. 
193 
one, and the sex could not be readily determined. — C. A. Allen, Nicasio , 
Marin Go., Gal. 
Wilson’s Thrush, with Spotted Eggs and nesting on a Tree. — 
In a collection of nests and eggs received from Vermont this season was 
the nest of this species built upon a horizontal limb of a tree, fifteen feet 
from the ground, and containing four spotted eggs. This is the only in- 
stance I have ever known either of the nest being much above the ground 
or of the eggs being other than immaculate. But I find it is not without 
precedent. Mr. George 0. Welch several years since found a nest of this 
Thrush in Lynn at a height of twenty-five feet above the ground, and Mr. 
Allen has recorded (Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., XVII, 48) an instance of 
its having spotted eggs. This case combines both. The nest is large and 
bulky, v T as saddled over quite a large limb, the impress of which is shown 
in the base. The ground-color of one egg is unusually deep, as deep as 
that of a Catbird, but of a different shade. The spots are of a bright 
golden-brown, in one egg very strongly marked, in the other three not so 
much so. The parent was sent with the nest, and before I received it its 
identity had been carefully verified by that veteran ornithologist, Charles 
S. Paine, Esq., of Randolph, Vt. — T. M, Brewer, Boston, Mass. 
The Pygmy Owl ( Glaucidium calif ornicum). — On the 13th of August, 
1877, about dusk, I heard near the house a great fuss among a lot of Brewer’s 
Blackbirds, which had nested in a small clump of red-woods near by. On 
approaching the spot, out went a bird, to which all the Blackbirds gave 
chase. When all had settled in a red-wood tree near by, I saw a Pygmy 
Owl sitting on a limb, — the cause of all the noise. I had my gun 
brought to me, when I shot the Owl, which proved to be a female. Again 
on July 8, 1878, at nine o’clock A. M., I heard a disturbance among the 
Blackbirds in the same clump of trees, and, suspecting the cause, took my 
gun and went to see what was the matter. On approaching the spot, out 
flew a lot of birds of different species, and among them a G. californicum, 
which, after much trouble, I shot as it was flying over some low bushes ; 
this one was a male. There were fighting the Owl one pair of Tyrannus 
verticalis, one pair of Bullock’s Orioles, one pair of Bewick’s Wrens, three 
Banded Tits ( Ghamcea fasciata), one pair of Pipilo oregonus, one pair of 
P. crissalis, and about twenty Blackbirds (Scolecophagus cyanocephalus ). 
The bravest birds of the troop were Bewick’s Wren and Bullock’s Oriole, 
which kept darting at the Owl’s head as it sat on the ground devouring a 
young Blackbird. I have seen a Pygmy Owl dart down and lift a Chip- 
ping Squirrel with ease and carry it off. — C. A. Allen, Nicasio, Gal. 
The Carolina Wren in Massachusetts. — My friend, Mr. Geo. 0. 
Welch, secured a fine specimen of the Thryothorus luclovicianus in Lynn, 
on the 6th of July. The imprudent stranger ventured within an easy 
range of his work-room window, in the very heart of the city, and now 
remains as tangible evidence of its right to a place on the list of the birds 
of this State as well as New England. — T. M. Brewer, Boston , Mass . 
