Page:Condor16(3).djvu/46

 144 THE CONDOR VoL XVI birds usually start a second brood about this time, the young of which appear late in July. 8ialia currucoides. Mountain Bluebird. Common summer resident of the foothills, but not common far into the mountains. More rare in the prairies, but fairly common locally about Choteau, where it nests in and about build- ings. Migration date: March 28, 1912. Nesting begins about May 10. Two broods are usually reared. West Haven, Connecticut, December 2, 0$. FROM FIELD AND STUDY California Murre at Newport Beach, Orange County, Callfornia.--On January 28 of the present year, while looking for sea-birds which might have been washed up by. the storm which swept the coast for ten days or more, I found a very "sick" Murre (Uria troille californica) sitting near the water's edge. The bird was captured after a short chase and its lower parts were found to be soaked with oil. This would argue that it had been blown south from the San Francisco Bay region, where so many birds fall victims to the oil thrown from the tank steamers, and was not a regular visitant this far south. The main sufferers from the blow were the Cassin Auldets (Ptycorampus aleuti- cus), nine being found in three miles of beach. Mr. A. B. Howell saw about forty in five miles of beach at Bay City a day or so previously. It is 'probably as much be- cause of the inability to feed on very rough water as the battering .they receive that so much havoc is caused among the Auklets; for all were extremely emaciated and the stomachs empty.--ADRIAAN VAN ROSSEH, Pomona, California. Return of a Western Flycatcher to a Particular Locality.--During the spring and summer of 1913 a Western Flycatcher (Empicionax ciifficilis ciifficilis), inhabiting the laurels and live oaks along Strawberry Creek near the Faculty Club, attracted my attention by its note. This differed from that of all other birds of this species which I have observed, in that the usual single note of rising inflection was preceded and succeeded by single short monotonous notes. This year (1914) the same note has been heard almost daily in the same locality. I believe, therefore, that the identical bird has returned to the same haunts that it occupied during the previous year. If this be true we have here another-exhibition of the homing instinct in birds.--TaAC I. STORER, Department of Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, California. Red-winged Blackbird on the Sierras in Winter.--While sleighing to Donner Lake from Truckee on February 28, last, I was much struck by the absence of bird-life, only a couple of small birds flitting through some pines, having been seen. Unfortunately, it was impossible to form even an idea of the identity of these. Upon approaching the lake, a solitary male Red-wing flew up from the snow into a nearby pine, which act was repeated as we set forth upon the return journey. The bird each time was within a few feet of the sleigh, and it was readily seen that its plumage was quite ragged; also that the red shoulder patches were quite heavily barred with buff. Even with the probability that the bird had been forced to remain in such severe winter quarters through injury, its presence in such a locality upon the date mentioned seems worthy of record.--JoH W. MAILLIARD, San Francisco, California. Desert Sparrow near Claremont, California.--On March 14, 1914, while collecting in the brush nor[h of here, I shot an adult male Amphispiza bilineata cieserticola. As Mr. Willett, in his "Birds of the Pacific Slope of Sot!thern California", mentions this sparrow as but an occasional visitant to this region, I thought the above instance worthy of note.--WaaHT M. PraCE, Claremont, California.