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?8 THE CONDOR I VoL. V [My own experience agrees perfectly with that of Mr. Mailliard. During December, 19oo, while at Monterey Bay I saw a Heermann Gull and many emaciated Brandt Cormorants which were dying a slow death, and only yesterday (Dec. a2, I9o2 ) saw another during a short walk near the Point Pinos Light. On Laysan Island, Hawaiian Group, I saw a number of sickly birds among the seafowl, and found a very rare petrel in this condition. Mr. Scott's rule does not obtain among mammals for beside the example offered by Mr. Mailliard, I found a large sea lion near Cypress Point which existed for days in a perfectly helpless and moribund con- dition until Professor Harold Heath and myself mercifully killed it. Dissection showed no internal injuries nor parasites, while the teeth rather pointed to old age.--W. K. F.] The Fall l?ligralion of Oreortyx pictus plumiferus.--The fall migration of the mountain quail (Ore?rty.?: pictus plurni/erus) appears to be influenced but little by the food sup- ply or temperature in its summer habitat in the Sierras which it appears to leave because the proper time has arrived for its annual tramp down the west slope. The first flocks start about the first of September, or sometimes two or three days sooner. At Webber Lake after three cold cloudy days, they began to move westward August 28, i9oo. When they are migrating their whistle is frequently heard, and they do not seek cover for protection but iollow awagon road, railroad, travel iu snow sheds, pass near dwellings, and seem to care but little for self preserva- tion. Several flocks used to come down to the foot of Stanfield Hill, Yuba County, which for eight years was my favorite shooting grounds, and there spend the winter. They would arrive about the middle of October. One year they did not come at all, and I wondered if they could foretell the mildness or severity of the coming winter, for that winter was a mild one, excepting that October was unusually cold and stormy. Their regularity in leaving the mountains without regard to food, temperature, or size of young has mystified me quite as much as .4?zt/zus pensilvan- icus, and other northern breeding birds which I found in southern Lower California. Why they should remain in the tropical climate of Cape San Lucas until the first of May and then depart for their northern breeding grounds at the same time when they start north from the much more northern Central California puzzled me, for there was no perceptible change in cli- matic conditions about the first of May, and indeed scarcely a change in them, at the Cape, dur- ing the two or three preceeding months. --LYMAN BELDING, Xlt?C}lo?t, Cal, Do ?uail, Lophortyx californicus vallicolus, Remove Their 13ggs?--One evening last spring as men were mowing the meadow, I went out to look for quail nests. In all I located eight nests, containing from three to eleven eggs. The following morning I revisited the nests and was surprised to find that four were empty. Passing outside the field I flushed a quail from a nest containing six eggs which I recognized as a clutch (then of five) I had seen in the field the previous day. I am positive these were the same eggs as I could not mistake the peculiar marking of two of them. This second nest was forty feet from the other and on slightly higher ground. Is this characteristic of the birds? If so, how do they remove the eggs?--ERNEST ADAMS, Clipper Gap, Cal. Frozen Toes.--I shot a golden-crowned sparrow the other day near Polo Alto that shows a curious mutilation of the feet. The outer toe of each foot is thickened and gnarled so that the joints can hardly be distinguished. A stump of the bone or claw protrudes at the tip. The whole thing reminded me of the way chickens' toes look after being frost-bitten. The sparrow, as shown by the skull, was of a last years' brood, and might have tarried in its northern home last fall until a hard freeze set in. I have seen similar scars on bird's feet before, but I can't just now remember what species. Perhaps someone can suggest a more reasonable explanation.--Jos- EPH GRINNELL. Food of _&nrta I-Iummingbircl.--In December, 19Ol, I collected a female Anna humming- bird which had eaten thirty-two green tree-hoppers, one spider, one fly, apparently a Simulium, and other insect remains which could not be determined.--1 ?. C. CLARK, Napa, Cal. Wootl Ibis in Southern California.--The wood ibis ( Ta?italus loculator) is so rarely noted in Southern California that a flock of twenty-five seen by Joseph Grinnell and myself from .the train, on the margin of a tide flat one-half mile north of Oceanside, August 5, is of especial interest. This is the first time we have seen it on this coast and the records of other observers are few and far between. On August I5, Mr. G. H. Coffin shot one from a pair at Bixby, Los Angeles Co., but not knowing of its rarity it found its way into the pot and proved "not very good eating." I was able to identify it by its head and wings. On August 23, Mr. Coffin and T. L. Duque went out purposely for the other one and were fortunately able to secure it. Through their kindness it reached me in good condition. It