SOUTHERN DIVISION
September—The September meeting was called to order by Vice-President H. J. Lelande at his office in the City Hall, Los Angeles, Thursday evening, October 1, 1908, with members Henry B. Reading, Loye Holmes Miller, Howard Robertson, Alphouse and Antonin Jay, Otto Zahn, Pingtee I. Osborn, Howard Wright and J. Eugene Law present.
The minutes of the last meeting, June 25, 1908, were read and approved. The application of Luther J. Goldman to reelection to active membership was presented by the Secretary.
A letter was read from Rudolph M. Anderson, who writes from Herschel Island, Northwest Territory, where he was on August 11, 1908, enroute to the more remote Arctic with an expedition sent by the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. He says in part: "I have had a splendid season's collecting, and made a few good photos. Among the sets taken along the line (proceeding northward from Alberta to Great Slave Lake) are Bohemian Wax-wing n-6, Pine Siskin n-3, Blackpoll Warbler n-4, White Pelican (at rookery at the Mountain Portage of Slave River)?½, ⅓, ¼, Slate-colored Junco n-4, Montana Junco n-4, Olive-backed Thrush n-3, etc."
"I sent back about one hundred skins from Ft. Norman in July, and have just packed up fifty taken the past month between Ft. McPherson and this place. The latter lot included good series of Snowflakes, Lapland Longspurs, Horned Larks, Savanna Sparrows, both adults in moulting plumage and young in juvenile plumage. Took one specimen of Wheatear or Stone-chat, July 31. Have paid especial attention to juvenal and eclipse plumages.
"An interesting capture was a nest of four young Golden Eagles, just able to fly from nest on August 4th. The nest was on the face of a steep mud cliff near the sea on the west side of Herschel Island. The huskies told me that the eagles have nested there for several years. This may perhaps be near the bird's northern breeding range.
"The Pacific whaling fleet have so far failed to put in their expected appearance and we are short of necessary supplies, principally "grub", and have consequently been obliged to postpone our projected trip eastward to the Coppermine River country, until next summer, probably. We (Mr. Stefansson and myself) have two good 30-foot whaleboats, staunch sailing craft, have enlisted the services of several "huskies", and expect to cruise westward along the northwest coast of Alaska, probably starting tomorrow, hoping to find a good wintering place somewhere between Flaxman Island and the mouth of the Colville River. Possibly we may work westward as far as Point Barrow. At present we have twenty-three dogs with voracious appetites and a great problem is to keep them fed. Fortunately fishing is good. We drew in 78 fair-sized whitefish at one haul of a 30-foot gill net this morning.
"I hope to get west as far as Flaxman Island before the latter part of this month, before the caribou leave the coast. At any rate we shall have some caribou shooting, as well as Alaska mountain sheep, this fall. Both these species are found near the north coast in fair numbers. I do not know whether this letter will get out by some whaler this summer or by the Dawson Patrol next winter."
As a matter of general interest to bird students, a small group of fossil bird bones was exhibited by Mr. Miller of the State Normal School. The specimens were recently found in quaternary deposits of Southern California and represent some large species of water birds.
The distal end of the humerus was shown in comparison to that of the white pelican and a coracoid in comparison with the same bone of the brown pelican. In the former case the fossil form exceeds the recent by a goodly margin, while in the latter case the fossil was double the mass of the recent form. A fragment of the beak of another form was also exhibited which shows, seemingly, relationship with the boatbilled storks.
Mr. Miller is assembling as large a collection of skeletal material of the larger birds as possible for the identification of such fossil remains and made an appeal to Cooper Club members to help in the establishment of such a collection in the community, where it will be at the disposal of all interested in comparative osteology.
The identity of fossils of game birds in fragments or of fragments of sea birds cast on the beach, sometimes becomes a matter of importance. The body bones of the condor and of golden eagles would be exceedingly valuable material for comparison in this special case.
The specimens shown are exceedingly suggestive of the avifauna that at one time existed here. They were found in company with the remains of the saber-toothed tiger, the giant ground sloth, mastodon and the camel. If these beasts once walked the plains about Los Angeles, what might not have been flying above their heads?
Mr. Pingtee I. Osborn exhibited a pair of dark-colored Socorro Petrels and a pair of Cassin Auklets, with an egg of the latter, all taken at Coronado Islands, early in the summer. A very black hawk taken near La Jolla, Cal., on Sept 11. 1908, was shown by Mr. Roth Reynolds. This proved to be the Zone-tailed Hawk. Adjourned.
