<I>Sitta canadensis</I> appearing in numbers in the District of Columbia

88

^{GeneralNote*..}

_[^

_a^u_n^k

atLarch

mo

nton

Long

Island

Sound

onJulyxSandinCentral Park,New-

York

City, on August29. Dr.

Mearns

does not include itinhis 'Bird¹⁵ of the

Hudson

Highlands,'andDr. Fisher tells

me

he has not

met

with ^it at Sing Sing. Mr. _J. Rowley, Jr., informs

me

that at Hastings-on-the

Hudson

afewmiles north of Yonkers hesees one or two of these birds each year. Butthe most interesting evidence concerning the Carolina

Wren

in the

Hudson-

Valley is furnished by Mr. Bicknell

whose

notes were

made

atRiverdaleontheeastern shore of theriver,exactlyopposite Englewood. Mr. Bicknell writes: "

About

Riverdalethe Carolina

Wren

iscertainly

more common

than itused to be.

Up

^to 1879,

when

I found

itbreedingatSpuyten Duyvil,Iregarded itas an accidental visitor.

My

brotherswerecloseobserversofbirdsbefore me,andthey hadnever seen

it, althoughone had been shotat Riverdale in the late

autumn

of _1873.

Of

late yearsIhave

come

to look

upon

itas a regularly irregular visitor, and everyyear I expecttomeetwithitat leasttwo or three times. . . .

It has seemed to

me

theeasternshore of the

Hudson

gets the overflow from the

Wren

population of the slopes of the Palisades,

which

has undoubtedlybeen increasing. Foryearspaston occasional visits to the Palisades from springuntil late in

autumn

I haveneverfailed to hear the Carolina

Wren,

and havefrequentlyheardtwosinging atthe

same

time.

On

one occasion I heard two singing and

saw

still another,all at the

same moment." My own more

recent experience with this bird on the Palisades, as herein recorded, confirms Mr. Bicknell's remarks, and it

would appear that, having

become

permanently established there, it is

gradually spreadingthrough thesurroundingcountry.

—

Frank M. Chap- man, American Museum

of

Natural

History, Netv

Tork

City.

Sittacanadensisappearing in

Numbers

in the District of Columbia.

—

Last

autumn

thewritercollected birds quiteextensively

atTakoma,

D.C., andvicinity,especially inthe southern part of

Montgomery

County,Mary- land.

During

allthattimeandthe following winter not a single speci-

men

of the Red-breasted Nuthatch (S. canadensis) was observed, and there isevery reason tobelieve thattheywerenotat allrepresented

among

the fall migrants of that season (1891-1892). This autumn, however, (1892) the case is entirely different,for in the

same

^localities the bird

came

early, andin

most

unusual numbers.

They

have appeared inloose flocks,associatedwith theusual

autumn

small birds, as Juncos, Titmice, Wrens, etc., and

upon

several occasions one could count as

many

as thirtyorfortyof

them

froma singlepoint of observation. There

would

be notroubleincollecting as

many

as ^fifty specimens in a day.

Many

birds of theyearare

among

them, asisindicated by theirduller

plumage

and less decided markings.

A number

of years ago I

remember

this species appearing thus suddenly one

autumn

in the neighborhood of Stamford, Connecticut,a placewhere the writercollected birds for a long timeearly in the sixtiesand wherethespecies had not been noticed for

many

seasons.

—

R.

W. Shufeldt, Takoma, D.

C.