July, 1919 FROM FIELD AND STUDY 173
five years of beach work. Other collectors state they have never seen it in this locality; hence the record seems worthy of publication.
Little Brown Crane (G?rus canadensis): A specimen shot at dusk on January 31, 1918, near Los Angeles, by a hunter who mistook it for a goose, was presented to this Museum, where it was mounted and placed on exhibition.
Marbled Godwit (Limosa fedoa): A winter record, January 6, 1919, appears unique. The bird was seen from a car window, near Del Rey; but no mistake could have been made in identification.
A cripples' convention: While bird-looking on the beach January 1, 1919, near Hermosa Beach, I noted a flock of Sanderling (Calidris leucophaea) that acted peculi- arly. By working carefully along at some distance from the water, the birds were in- duced to string out in a line near the water's edge and passed me in that formation, eight of them running and fourteen hopping, and close inspection with a glass showed that fourteen of that flock were one-legged. Less than 200 feet farther up the beach were six Knots (Tringa can.utus) (note the winter record) of which two were "hoppers"; while close beside them, farther from the water, was a flock of seventeen Snowy Plover (Aegi- alitis nivosa) of which not less than five were one-legged. It would seem natural that birds of one species, crippled and unable to compete on even terms with their normal fel- lows, should flock together to some extent; but such a percentage of cripp]'es, of three species, and the proximity of the different groups of cripples, is interesting, to say the least.--L. E. WYlie, Museum of History, Science and Art, Los Angeles, June 14, 1919.
The MacFarlane Screech Owl in California.--Through an oversight there was
omitted from the 1915 California state list of birds a race of screech owl fully entit]ed to
have been included. This was the MacFarlane Screech Owl, Otus asio macfarlanei
(Brewster), the claims to which as a bird of California were clearly set forth by Mr. Rob-
ert Ridgway in 1914 (Birds of North and Middle America, Part vx, pp. 697-698). He
gives the range of this owl as including "northeastern California (Fort Crook; Baird,
Shasta County?)". The evidence for its occurrence at Ba/rd remains questionable, but
for Fort Crook, which is near Burgettville in extreme northeastern Shasta County, there
is a specimen in the United States National Museum.
Through the kind offices of Dr. Chas. W. Richmond, Associate Curator of Birds in the National Museum, the undersigned has been privileged to examine this Fort Crook specimen. It is no. 16027, U.S. Nat. Mus., male, taken by John Fellher (probably in 1860), and is in apparently as good state of preservation as if it were taken last year in- stead of nearly sixty years ago. The present writer has made comparisons between this bird and macfarlanei from eastern Washington, without detecting differences of any seeming consequence. Larger size, greater extent of blackish markings on the contour feathers generally, and the browner tone of color dorsally, serve to distinguish it from any specimen of the more southern California races, benditel, quercinus and gilmani. The l?'ort Crook bird, having been in existence so long, has been commented upon by a number of writers before Ridgway announced its status in positive terms. Brew- ster (Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, vx?, 1882, p. 32) considered it an intergrade between benditel and kennicotti; Townsend (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., x, 1887, p. 203) placed it under the 'name "kennicottii?"; Brewster (Auk, viii, 1891, p. 143) thought it "about intermediate" between bendirei and macfarlanei; and Hasbrouck (Auk, x, 1893, p. 256) put it under ben?lirei.
Collectors visiting the Modoc region of extreme northeastern California should keep special lookout for the Macfarlane Screech Owl. It ought to be common there local- ly, even though but one California-taken specimen seems as yet to be contained in any museum.--J. GmNNrra,-Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, California, April 18, 1919.
A Breeding Record for the Red-headed Woodpecker in New Mexico.--On Monday,
June 1'6, while making a trip about five miles south of Albuquerque in company with S.
E. Piper and J. S. Ligon, of the U.S. Biological Survey, we saw a Red-headed Woodpeck-
er (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) enter a hole in a dead cottonwood tree. An examina-
tion showed the hole to contain young birds, probably about ten days old. Both adults
were observed a few minutes later carrying food to the young, and on passing the same
place about dark one of the old birds was found on the nest. As nearly as I am aware
