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A kite collected in Hacienda Pontezuelas, 10 km S del Carrizo, Gral. Teran (70 km SE Monterrey), appears to be the first specimen recorded of the hook-billed kite (Chondrohierax uncinatus) from the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The specimen, an adult female, was taken from its perch in an Acacia sp. on 16 January 1989. Neither Martin del Campo (1959) nor the American Ornithologists' Union (1983) record this species from Nuevo Leon. However, Palmer (1988) mentioned that a female hook-billed kite was previously (date and exact locality unknown) collected near her nest in Nuevo Leon. Our specimen was deposited in the Coleccion de Aves, Laboratorio de Herpetologia y Ornitologia, Facultad de Ciencias Biologicas, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon (UNAL 1696). The disposition of the specimen mentioned by Palmer (1988) is unknown. On two previous occasions, we observed hookbilled kites near their nests in Nuevo Leon. One

A modification of the small sample up-and-down method is studied for the normal, logistic, and extreme value distributions. Two specimens are tested “in series” (i.e., simultaneously) at each stimulus level, and the decision to increase or decrease the stimulus level for the next test is made as soon as the first specimen responds. This procedure can markedly reduce the total test time in certain situations. Overall, the efficiency of the new procedure, as judged using Dixon's E f criterion, is sufficiently high to warrant its consideration when overall test time is much more critical than specimen cost.

The rare black, tailed, clearwing moth, Alcathoe carolinensis Engelhardt, is previously known from Florida only by a single specimen taken by Sharp & Eichlin (1979) in north-central Florida during an extensive four-year sex attractant trapping study (1975-78). This lone Florida specimen was a male taken in a sticky trap located in a peach orchard near Lowell in Marion Co. on October 6, 1977. Prior to Sharp's state record, A. carolinensis was known in the U.S. only from a single male specimen considered by Engelhardt (1946) to be a female and a doubtful record presumably taken by Beutenmuller in the Black Mountains of North Carolina. Engelhardt speculated incorrectly that the lone specimen was probably a mislabled clearwing species from Mexico or Central America. In the late summer and fall months of 1984, extensive sampling for sesiids using sex attractants was begun at numerous locals in west-central and southwestern Florida. This survey will continue for two years but has already produced three new Florida localities for A. carolinensis, thus confirming Sharp's lone published state record. The specimens are as follows: 1) 1 male taken at Chassahowitzka, Citrus Co. on Oct. 12, 1984; 2) 1 male taken 1 mi. W. of Homosassa Springs, Citrus Co. on Oct. 14, 1984; and 3) 1 male taken 11/2 mi. SW of Crystal River, Citrus Co. on Oct. 19, 1984. The Chassahowitzka specimen was taken in a Pherocon R-1C sticky trap, but the other two were trapped alive in excellent condition, in home-made cylindrical live-traps originally designed for sugared-beer baiting for noctuid moths. All three specimens were attracted to commercially prepared strips containing capillary tubes (Pest Select, Inc.) which release EZ-3,13-octadecadien-1-ol acetate (usually abbreviated EZ-3,13 ODDA). Several other isomers & chemical combinations known to be sesiid attractants were also utilized, but they failed to attract A. carolinensis. These include: 1) ZZ-3,13-ODDA, 2) EZ-2, 13-ODDA, 3) EZ-3, 13-ODD alcohol, and 4) 50% EZ-3, 13-ODDA plus 50% ZZ-3, 13ODDA. The identifiction of A. carolinensis was confirmed by T. D. Eichlin, Division of Plant Industry, Sacramento, California. The specimens are presently deposited in the U.S.F. Biological Collections. It should be noted that the single specimen taken in 1977 (Sharp, et. al. 1978) responded to a trap baited with a mixture of 25% ZZ-3,13-ODDA plus 75% EZ-3,13ODDA, and the date was within a week of the first specimen taken in 1984. It is possible that A. carolinensis in Florida, has a fairly narrow annual emergence window, because to date it has been recorded only in October, even though traps were baited with attractant more or less continuously throughout the fall months in suitable areas.

All large collections of Recent mammals contain specimens which show anomalies in the dental formulae or in individual teeth although such specimens are proportionately rare. Similar anomalies are found also in fossil specimens although the number is less because fewer specimens are involved. Are these fossil specimens productive of taxonomic error? I have received the impression that this is not an uncommon question among neozoologists. Mistakes have been made, but the number of "species" named as a result of this kind of misunderstanding of the evidence probably is insignificant among fossil mammals. On the other hand, many examples of dental anomaly or abnormality have been described from fossils, although these descriptions frequently have been buried in comprehensive monographs. Determination of these cases as such is based on the same principles as in Recent species. Two examples in the collections of the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, and previously undescribed, are given below. The first specimen is a fragment of left lower jaw with two molar teeth and part of a third, K.U. No. 8508. This fragment belongs to the primate genus Pelycodus, and probably to the species P. ralstoni. The specimen was found on the south fork of Elk Creek, Big Horn County, Wyoming, in the lower part of the Willwood formation of early Eocene age.

THERE is a notable dearth of exact information concerning the food habits of serpents. Data on these reptiles in the wild onsist chiefly of isolated observations on prey actually observed in process of being captured or eaten, or of the food found in the stomachs of specimens which have been killed. The slight chance for observations of the first sort and the large number of specimens examined in which the digestive tract is empty have further limited the nu ber of useful records. The chance receipt of three living specimens of the Pacific rattlesnake (Crotalus confluentus oreganus Holbrook) in a laboratory where a colony of domestic Norway rats is maintained for nutritional studies has afforded opportunity to study the food habits of this species. Our first specimen (No. 1) was captured at Bluff Lake, 7,500 feet altitude, San Bernardino Mountains, California, on June 26, 1928. This animal was in the "black phase" of coloration. The other two were received May 6 (No. 2) and in June (No. 3) respectively, of 1930; one of these (No. 2) was obtained somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley; the other presumably somewhere to the north and west of Davis: it was impossible to learn the exact localities of capture. However, all are undoubtedly of the sub-species indicated above. No. 1 weighed 452 grams on August 25, 1928. No measurements have been taken, and, unfortunately, exact record of the rattles has not been kept. No. 1 had either 6 or 7 rattles when received; it has lost some, at the tip, and now has 10 rattles. It has molted twice each year or 7 times in 3y2 years and so should have either 13 or 14 rattles if one is acquired at each molt.