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 THE-C9rB?R Volume X $eplember-October 1908 Number BIRDS OF A VOYAGE ON SALTON SEA By J. GRINNELl, WITH FOUR PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR O N the morning of April 19, 1908, in company with Chas. Richardson, Jr., and Douham, the boatman, I started from Mecca, California, for a cruise on Salton Sea. Our object was to ascertain what waterbirds were nesiing on or about the Sea, and to secure specimens of birds, mammals and reptiles, all in the interests of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, at the University of California. Mecca, where our base camp was located under a clump of cottonwoods by an artesian well, is a station (once called Walters) on the Southern Pacific about a mile west of the westernmost encroachment of Salton Sea. The railroad towards Yuma used to be a straight track eastward from Mecca past the now submerged site of the Salton salt vorks; but the rising water compelled the building of one and then a second new route out around the north margin of the Sea. The line of telegraph poles out. into the water, successively deeper and deeper, until only the crosstree of the last one shows above the surface, marks the course of the old route From our camp at Mecca, we were compelled to carry our outfit down the railroad to the landing, a gravelly beach flanking the railroad which is protected from the waves by a tier of sand-bags. Our launch was unmo9red from its berth in a half-submerged mesquite clump, and after the usual tinkering with the gaso- lene engine we were under way. The boat had been christened the "Vinegaroon", which word Donham told us was the Mexican name for a curious "bug" (a Solpugid I judged from his de- scription) whose movements are very quick and as rapid in one direction as in an- other. But we found that our craft could hardly bear out the analogy. Nine hours were occupied in covering the forty miles to our first objective point, Echo Island.