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Sept., 1913 EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS 185 THE CONDOR A lSta?azlne of ?re?tern Ornitholo? Published Bi-bionthly by the Cooper Ornitholof[ical Club J. GRINNELL, Editor. Berkeley, C?lifor?ia HARRY S. SWARTH. Associo. te Editor J. ETIGENE LAW } Business M?naalers W. LEE CHAMBEP,.S Hollywood, California: Published October 191,.1 SUBSCI?IPTION RATES One Dollar and FHty Cents per Year in the United States, Canada, Mexico and U.S. Colonies, payable in advance Thlriy Cants the single copy. One Dollar and Seventy-five Cents per Year in all other countries in the International postal Union. Claims for missing or imperfect numbers should be made within thirty days of date of issue. Subscriptions and Exchan#es should be sent to the Business .Manager. Mo. nuscrlpts for publication. and Books and Po. pers for review, should be sent to the Editor. Advsriisln# Rstss on application. EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS It is an undisputed fact that the waterfowl of California are rapidly decreasing in num- bers. Even such species as the Mallard and Cinnamon Teal, which used tc, breed numer- ously in many parts of the state, occur no longer in summer in much of their former breeding range. It is of very great import-. anco that each ornithologist in the state place on record what he has learned in regard to our native game birds. If the material is of sufficient quantity to warrant a general arti- cle in T?I?: CoN?oR it ought to be thus pre- sented. But even if only a few lines can be offered, these should be sent in for publics t/on, as a field-and-study note. Such items as the following will constitute valuable addi- tions to our knowledge: Exact dates of nesting, numbers of eggs or young, manner of nesting, time of donning eclipse plumage in ducks, food of. young and of adults, exact dates of arrival and departure in the migra- tory species. Mr. A. B. Howell has undertaken the prep- aration of a summary of all that is known con- cerning the birds of the Santa Barbara Islands. This will appear in due course of time as one of the Cooper Club's .4vifauna series. Mr. Howell invites all observers who have Island information as yet unpublished to either place it on record at once, or send in their manu- script notes to him--in either event making their knowledge available in time to be in- corporated in his forthcoming treatise. Messrs. Witherby & Company have been appointed European agents for "The Emu", the organ of the Royal Australasian Ornitho- logists' Union, and copies of that publication can now be obtained at 326, High Holborn, London. Dr. Reuben M. Strong, of the University of Chicago, is at work upon a monograph of the anatomy of the Tubinares. Material is especially desired which is of a nature to be used in dissecting the soft anatomy of the Pacific albatrosses. Correspondents in a position to furnish such material should in- form Dr. Strong of the fact. Students of western birds Will be interested to know that the United States Biological Survey is resuming its field work in Arizona. Mr. E. A. Goldman has been carrying on work there the past summer under the aus- pices of the Bureau; and Mr. E. W. Nelson, who is in charge of the biological investiga- tions of the Survey, will take the field for a time this fall. We may look forward to a final report upon the fauna of Arizox,?. compiled along similar lines to the excellent state reports already put out for Texas, Colo- rado, and other western areas. A field party from the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology returned on August 25 from three full months of zoological ex- ploration in the coast district of California north from Marin County to the olla Belly district of Trinity County. The party con- sisted of Mr. Walter P. Taylor, in charge, with Mr. Charles L. Camp, Mr. Alfred C. Shelton, and Mr. George Stone, of the Uni- versity of California, as assistants. Mr. G. . F. Ferris, of Stanford University, accom- panied the expedition in the interests of Prof. V. L. Kellogg, for the purpose of gathering bird and mammal parasites. The results of the season's work, as far as now apparent, consist in a greatly increased knowl- edge of the distribution of the vertebrate ele- ments in the faunal areas traversed. Since Mr. W. P. Taylor's report in qur May issue (pages 125 to 128) of accomplish- ments in California in the line of xvild life conservation, the fortunes attending this worthy cause have been varied. For reasons neither explained, nor readily inferred, the Governor failed to sign a number of the im- portant bills passed by the legislature. Thus out of the list of 13 items as given by Tay.- lot, uumbers 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13 were lost, save that the separate bill included un- der number 13, providing p?rotection for Sea Otter alone, was signed. The hotly contest- ed no-sale and no-shipment bill zeas signed; but enemies of the regulation, ?amely the San Francisco Hotelmen's Association, have subsequently succeeded in securing the requisite number o'f sig- natures to the appropriate petitions ? in- voking the referendum on this law. The enforcelnent of the measure will therefore be