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 70 THE CONDOR } Vol. III Midwinter Birds at Barstow. HE SIXTH of January, x9ox, I spent at Barstow, a Santa Fe  Railroad Station on the Mojave Desert of southeastern California. The country in this vicin- ity is hilly and particularly barren of vegetation. All the birds obs'rved were along the Mojave River, at this date merely a creek, which one could clear at a jump. Along this stream are stretches of alkali grass flats, with here and there thin willow patches and scattered cottonwoods. The day was very windy, and consequently rather unfavorable for collecting. Perhaps x75 birds were seen al- together during the six hours of active observation. These consisted of the fol- lowing thirteen species. x. Accipiter velox. Sharp-shinned Hawk. One individual seen among the cottonwoods. 2. Colapres caret collaris. Red-shafted Flicker. One individual, 3. Sayornis saya. Say Pheebe. One individual flying along the River. 4. Sturnella magna neglecta. Western Meadowlark. A single silent individual flushed from a grassy meadow by the' River. 5. Carpodacus mexicanus obscurus. House Finch. The House Finches were the most abundant of the birds at Barstow. They kept for the most part close about the buildings in the manner of English Spar- rows. But a few were to be found in the reed patches.of the River bottom. Both these and the Gambel Sparrows had probably been in this vicinity constantly for many weeks, for they were much blackened with coal smoke. Their general ap- pearance from a distance was thus so different from the ordinary that I at first shot several when partly obscured among the brush, thinking them some un- familiarspecies. The specimens secured are uniformly and evenly blackened over the whole plumage, the resulting coloration being quite odd. In a male House Finch the parts of the plumage normally red are a deep burnt carmine color. In an adult Gambel Sparrow, the anterior parts have a dark plumbeous caste, This sootiness of plumage has been previously observed in several species taken about snlokey railroad towns. (Cf. McGtEGOR, Condor II, Jan. 9oo, p. 8). I am tempted to believe that the Parus ambeli thayeri (BIRTWELL, /tk XVIII, April 9o, p. x66), described from Albuquerque, is based on just such adventitious characters. 6. Zonotrichia leucophrys gainbell. Gambel Sparrow. Fairly common in the brush of the River bottom. 7- Antbus pensilvanicus. American Pipit. One individual at margin of the stream. 8. Thryomanes bewicki drymecus. [Vigors Wren]. The single specimen secured appears to be quite like birds from the San Joa- quin-Sacramento Valley, and was evidently a winter straggler to this locality. 9- Sitta carolinensis aculeata. Slender-billed Nuthatch. I was heedlessly striding along a desolate wash, making for a di rant clump' of bushes, when I was abruptly recalled to attentivehess by a succession of sonor- ous raps, startingly plain ex/en above the swish of the wind. Tracing this woodsy sound over into the next arroyo, I located the drummer, diligently pegging away at the stretched hide of a dessicated horse carcass. Here the forlorn bird was evi- dently trying to strip amealfrom this impregnable cache of natural jerky. I