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 92 Vol. XVI ' FROM FIELD AND STUDY Hooded Merganser near Los Angeles.--A female Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) was taken by Mr. A. E. Jackson at Del Rey, Los Angeles County, on Novem-- her 27, 1913. The' species is of stfficient rarity in southern California to make th record ing of this capture seem worth while.--W. L= CaABaS, Los Aneles, California. A' New Bird for the Kansas List.--On April 12, 1913, I secured a female robin near Lawrence, Kansas, which upon examination proves to be Planesticus m. achrusterus, a diagnosis confirmed by Mr. H. C. Oberholser. Other specimens have been collected and examined in this same locality in years past. This race seems to be a regular migrant in.. April, and may perhaps prove to be the breeding form in the southeastern portion of the tate. The nearest point at which this I/ird has been recorded previously is Van Buren, Arkansas (Howell, Birds of Arkansas, Bul. 38, Biological Survey, p. 92).--ALex Biological Survey, I4/ashington, D.C. California Brown Pelican in British Columbia.---On July 18, 1913, about 10 A.M., between Alert Bay, Johnson Straits, and Round Island, east entrance to Queen Charlotte Son.nd, British Columbia, I saw a California Brown Pelican (Pelecanus californicus). The weather had been very wa. rm, dry and clear; but a dense fog that morning had, for safety's sake, necessitated the "Spokane" to lie at anchor at Alert Bay from five to nine A.M. After it cleared and we were under full steam .again, we passed a low, narrow sandbar upon which .the Pelican stood surrounded by a flock of sea gulls. With my field glasses I had a long and most satisfactory study of him, in his characteristic (profile) pose, with his neck and bill forming an inverted V.--Ms. F. T. BICKL, Los Angele s, California. More Records of the Emperor Goose in Californla.--Mr. Vernon Shepherd, a prominent taxidermist of San Francisco, has reported to me that he has known of at least a dozen specimens of the Emperor Goose (Philacre canagica) having been taken in Cali- fornia since 1906. Three of this number he took himself near Dixon, Solano County, Cali- fornia. He has donated to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology a mounted specimen of a male taken by a market hunter at Colusa, Colusa County, in November, 1912. The speci- men was sent to the market in San Francisco and was obtained by Mr. Shepherd from L. Scatena Company. Mr. Wm. Hackmeier, another taxidermist of San Francisco, has reported the two fol- lowing records, the first of which was verified by correspondence with the collector. Male specimen taken November 15, 1913, 10 miles west of Modesto, Stanislaus County, California, by W. D. Toomes.' The bird came to the blind alone and was shot. The speci- men was mounted by Mr. Hackmeier and is now in the possession of the collector at Mo- desto. An individual identified by Mr. Hackmeiei as an inraature male Emperor Goose was taken near Ingomar, Merced County, California, in December, 1912, by Louis Pfitzer. The bird was not preserved. The records for Stanislaus and Merced Counties are the first known instances of the oc- currence of the Emperor Goose in the San Joaquin Valley. There have been but four previous published records of the occurrence of this goose in California.--H. C. BeYn', Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. Flight of Swainson Hawks at Pomona, California.On April 4 of the present year, while collecting in a small wash just east of here, a boy called my attention to a large blackish hawk perched in the top of a small eucalyptus. It was easily shot and proved to be a Buteo swainsoni in melanistic plumage. At the shot several more flew from a near-by grove of tall eucalyptus, and a passing train scared out the remainder of the flock which numbered about thirty birds all told. About half of them flew close past me and showed themselves to be in the same dark plumage as the one taken. Of the birds that remained circling over the grove one certainly was of a much lighter color than the rest; but w. hether these last were as dark as those seen at close rauge ! am unable to say for certain, though such was apparently the case.--AI^A vA Ross, Pomona, Cali- fornia.