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14 THE CONDOR VoL. XII carnivores by a large number of individuals with .worn or broken teeth. He ascribed this condition to.the inexperience of the young or to the extremity of the aged. Possibly among predaceous birds, cared for in infancy and taught by instnct to seek an active prey not perceived by the sense of smell, it was mainly the old or otherwise disabled individuals which resorted to this ignoble feast." The absence of small passex:ines is perhaps explainable by their possible destruction during a certain degree of differential motion of which theseSbeds give evidence. The struggle of the larger mammals entrapt, the slow sinking of their carcases, the upward counter-current produced by the rise of gas bubbles or of semi-liquid material, all conspired to effect a pretty thoro churning which resulted in the breaking of mammalian bones of considerable size. Recent passerines are certainly not infrequent victims of the deceptive asphalt. Their bones in matted masses were found in a recent deposit. Their bodies still in the flesh have been noted as stated above. A workman in the oil fields told me that he once counted the dead bodies of seventy-five swallows that had come to gather "mud" an the margin of an oil reservoir built by the levee of a natural depression. On the streets of Berkeley, California, during the past summer, the street railway com- pany spread a thin layer of crude oil late one afternoon. The next morning at eight o'clock, the author saw an English Sparrow that had fallen victim--feet, wings, breast, feathers and finally nostrils, completely smeared with the viscid oil. Interesting records bearing on the range of present species have been made in several cases. The discovery of a true Peacock is perhaps the most startling. Mr. Grinnell in a very charitable review of the author's paper on this form, has already called attention of CoN?)o? readers to the instance. Another case is that of Cathar- ista occidentalis, a new vulture slightly larger than C. alrala, with different pro- portions in the limb segments. The interesting question of the southward and eastward range of the new form next presents itself, truly an ahnost hopeless task, it seems, in view of the rarity of avian fossils. Other cases of equal or greater interest will doubtless come to light as the work progresses. The distal end of a tibia in the collection shows that a Caracara (Polyborus) was a member of our fauna at that time, tho specific determination has not yet been accomplisht. A Stork larger than the Wood Ibis (Tantalus) further allied us with the present Mexican or tropical American fauna. What could be more logical in view of the relation of Quaternary mammals to the present South American fauna ? During Quaternary time the physiographical barriers between North and South America are considered to have been less complete than those at present existing. Thus a blending of mammalian faunas of the Quaternary was permitted. Will enough other semi-tropic avian species be found wifh Calharista and Polyborus to indicate the absence at that time of climatic barriers or climatic differences ? Has a gradual change in the climate Of southern California caused a recession south- ward o[ the ranges of the two genera Polyborus and Catharisla ? The search for the unusual has been rewarded to the full in the new form Terato?'nt's. This form is striking to the layman as well as to the ornithologist. Eagle-like in its contours, unquestionably a bird of raptorial habit at least, yet it has a brain case exceeding in width that of the Ostrich, and is armed with a comprest, hookt beak almost twice the depth of that of a large female of the Alaska Bald Eagle. If the association of body parts found with the skull be correct, and every evidence points to the propriety of such assumption, the bird was a flying bird, tho a sailing and not a flapping flier. The clavicles are less powerful in proportion than those of the Condor, but are far from being the weak structures seen in flight-