Page:Condor7(4).djvu/27

OrnHhology Published Bi-mon?hly by ?he Cooper Ornl?hoio?i- eaI Club o? Cali?om?ia WALTE? K. FI?HE?, Editor, Palo Alto JO?EPH fi?IHHELL, Business Mana?r and Associate Editor, Pasadena E. ?HODCi?A?, WILLIAM L. FIHLEY, As?ciaie Editors F'aio Alto, California: Pnblished July 15, 1905 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Price in the Uuitcd States, anada, Mexico, and U.S. olonis one dollar ? year; single copies tweut-?ve cents. Price in all countries in the International Postal Union one dollar and a quarter a year. Subscriptions should be sent to the Business Manager; manuscripts and exchanges to the Editor. NOTES AND NEWS The attention of readers, who may not have seen the previous notice, is called to the fact that the present issue is being printed during the latter part of May. Consequently articles and notices which are sent later will not appear until September. For several reasons the Sep- tember issue may be a few days late, but it is not likely to be much behind time. 'If nothing happens' the editorial sanctum will be in a tent at Camp Agassiz after June ?5. To those who have been fortunate enough to spend longer or shorter periods with "the best camper of them all"--Mr. William W. Price, affectionately known as Billy to his nearer friends--further words on our part will be superfluous. But I fear there are many Cooper Club people who have not tasted the joys of Lake Tahoe, Glen Alpine, Mt. Tallac, and Desolation Valley. This region, lying just southwest of Lake Tahoe, is one of the ? wildest and most picturesque of the whole Sierra Nevada, and strangely enough is the most accessible. It was swept by glaciers in times past so that the mountains are wonder- fully sculptured and diverse, and the forests open. Within easy walking distance of camp are a dozen peaks from eight to ten thousand feet high, and forty-four lakes--thirty, by the way, with trout. The camp itself is in a wide glacier gorge, and a huge glacier-rounded knuckle of rock, jutting from the hillside near- by, forms the "Council Rock" remembered by everyone who has visited the camp. For those who are interested in mountain sports or alpine natural history there is no region in California that can a?proach this. Till Sep- tember ? letters to the editor may be sent to (2AMP AGASSIZ, TALLAC, (2ALIFORNIA, Or to Palo Alto. Mr. Grinnell writes that he will visit the higher parts of the San Bernardino Mountains this summer, and of course will be out of reach CONDOR [ VoL. VII of mail for a considerable portion of the time. Notices of the Fourth International Orni- thological Congress to be held at London, June I2 to ?7, have been received. Members of the General Committee for the United States are Drs. Allen, Richmond and Steineger and MessrS. Chapman, Elliot, and Ridgway. Messrs. Finley and Bohlman started the lat- ter part of May for the Klamath region of southern Oregon, where they will spend some time in photographing and studying the water birds which still teem in the marshes. In speaking of this locality a few extracts from a letter by Mr. Elmer I. Applegate of Klamath Falls may be of interest: "Since the settlement of the Klamath country there have been some marked changes in the frequency of species, length of their visits, etc. For example, the common valley quail, formerly rare, is becoming much more abundant as the grain area of the region in- creases. During the,winter, every cattle feed- yard supports flocks of them. They come to our yards each winter in increasing numbers where they feed with the cattle and have be- come almost domesticated. On the other hand, most water birds have greatly decreased in numbers. Encroachment upon their nesting and feeding grounds by stock, and wholesale slaughter by market hunters accounts for this, I think. Many wagon-loads. of ducks go to the San Francisco markets during the winter months. Until the price of grebe skins be- came so low as to make the business unprofit- able, tens of thousands of them were shipped out annually, threatening extermination. Years ago myriads of water fowl nested in the marshes about Swan Lake--ducks, terns, cur- lews, plovers, rails, various kind of snipe, etc. Now comparatively few nests can be found during the season. Sage hens are not nearly so numerous as formerly, and sharp-tailed grouse are rare. I have not seen a swan for several years. I don't know why there should be so few Clarke crows left. I can remember when the lower pine woods and juniper ridges were full of the noisy fellows: Pelicans, fish- hawks, cormorants, bald eagles and so on seem to be as plentiful as ever." Our readers will remember that this was one of the early collecting grounds of the late Major Charles E. Bendire. Mr. H. T. Clifton writes that Mr. W. Lee Chambers has left for the Bradshaw Mts., Ariz. We have delayed our reviews so long that we inadvertantly have failed to note in these col- umns Mr. Taylor's Standard American Egg Catalogue, Second Edition. Doubtless most of our readers are already familiar with it. Mr. Taylor has taken great pains to provide a cat- alogue giving the exchange values of eggs of North American birds, The list is prefaced by "Oological" by Taylor. F.M. Dille also con- tributes some "Ideas." "The exchange basis is worked out as consistently as possible, com- bining the views of many experienced collect- ors, and the prices, which are relative, are aimed to promote as far as possible equitable