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 Sept., 1911 .:::: :: ..: :: ;:.:-:: :

EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS " "; ** ' THE CONDOIk An Illustrated Magazine Of Western Ornithology Published Bi-Monthly by the Cooper Ornitholical Club J. GRINNELL. Editor, Berkeloy, Clif. J. EUGENE LAW ). u W. LEE CHAMBERS  ousmess rnagers HARleY 5. SWARTH ] ROBERT B. ROCKWELL  Auocite Editors G. WILLETT ) Hollywood, California: Publishod sopt. 2o, 1911 $UDSCIklPTION RATES One Dollar and Fifty Cents per Year in the United Stxtes, Canada, Mexico and U.S. Colonies, payable in advance Thirty Cents the single copy. One Dollar and Seventy-five Cents per Year in all other countr/es in the hlternational Postal Union Claims for missing or imperfect numbers should be made within thirty days of date of issue. Subscriptions and Exchanges should be sent to the Business Manager. Mu. nuscripts for publication. and Books and Pu. pers for review. should be sent to the ditor. Advertising Rates on applicntion, EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS During the past summer the University of California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology has had two expeditions in the field, both in the state of California. This in addition to the party which, earlier in the season (March 6 to June 6) traversed the length of the San Joaquin Valley. SOllie of the ornithological results ob- tained by the latter (prinmrily a mantotal col- lecting expedition)are published in the present, and in the last nmuber of Miss Annie M. Alexander and Miss Louise Kellogg, with assistants, spent three months in the high mountains of Siskiyou County, col- lecting birds and mammals, in continuance of work begun by them in Trinity County, (luring January and Febmary. The series of speci- mens gathered includes some species new to the Museum collections, and others but scantily represented; while one species of bird was se- cured new to the state of California. The special point of enquiry toward which the work has been directed is to ascertain the relationships of the fauna of the region with that of Mount Shasta on the one hand, and the Hmnboldt Bay region on the other. At the latter point the Museum had collectors working tinring the previous summer (1910); the Mount Shasta fauna has been the subject of exhaustive study by Dr. C. Hart Merriam. J. Grinnell amt W. P. Taylor, with T. I. Stor- er, H. A. Carr, anti N. Stern as assistants, have been exploring the mountains between Bakers- field anti Motant Whitney since the nliddle of Jnne. In two parties they traveled up different branches of the Kern River, finally meeting in the high monntains, and are to come out by way of Owen's Valley, on the eastern side of the range. The expedition has been highly successful in every way. At the last report re- ceived there were but two species of mammals known to occur in the region which had not been secured, and the bird collection is ahnost as contprehensive, at least as regards summer residents. The results will be of peculiar in- terest, both in relation to the collections already arttossed frout the southern California mountain ranges, and to those from the San Joaquin Valley. California ornithologists vill rejoice at the news that Mr. F. S. I)aggett has returned to this state, and that there is a possibility of his ntaking his home here once more. The Cooper Chtb will profit greatly by the renewal of his active participation in the affairs of the organi- zation. Dr. N. Dearborn, of the Biological Survey, has been spending part of the summer in Cali- fornia, in pursuance of the work of that Bureau, visiting the forest reserves of Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino counties. His particular study is the determination of the extent to which the smaller rodents are detrimental to the planting operations of the Forestry Department, anti devising ways of re- ducing their ntnubers where necessary. Mr. Malcohn P. Anderson, who for some years past has been collecting birds and 11mmmals in Asia for the British Museum, has recently re- turned to his houle at Menlo Park, California. His work took hiUl to the 11ore remote islands of the Japanese archipelago, and also to the wihler parts of western,China, and to Thibet. - l'UBLICATIONS REVIEWED A REVISION OF THE FORMS OF THE HAIRY ,Voo)PECKER (/9ryobates vzllosus [Linnaeus] ). By ttARR C. BERHOLSER. [--Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., vol, 40, 1911, pp. 595-621, pl.70(map). l'nblishedJune 3, 1911.] As a result of the careful examination of a very large series of these woodpeckers (1070 specimens) Mr. Ober- holser increases the fourteen forms heretofore recognized, to twenty, three of the nwly de- scribed subspecies occurring north of Mexico, in the territdry covered by the A. O, U. Check List. Of the tenmining three, two are from Mexico aml one from Nicaragua. Dryobates v. hyloscopus suffers the most in this readjustment, as. it supplies the material for all three of the new North American forms-- /). v. orius, type from Quincy, California, oc- curring in eastern Washington aml Oregon, south to central California, D. v. leucothorectis, in central New Mexico, northern Arizona, aml southern Utah, and /). v. iastus, a Mexican form ranging north to extreme southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. The