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July, ?9o7 ENGLISH SPARROW NOTES xo 9 The Bulletin on the English Sparrow, published by the Department of Agriculture in 1889, showed that none of the region south of Monterey had been invaded. When I first came to Portland in 1887, I didn't find an Englisher in the city. The bird was unknown here. The first pair likely came in the following year; for in the spring of 1889, I found a pair had reared a family about an ivy-covered house on Fourth and Pine streets. Since that time I have watched the population of the city grow till there is hardly a street that isn't overcrowded from the river to the hills. The most unique example of sparrow nest-building we found one year when we discovered an Englisher in possession of a hornet's nest. The hornets had built up under the projecting eaves of the front porch of a cottage, just beside the bracket. I don't know whether the hornets left voluntarily or with the aid of the sparrows. The birds entered the nest thru the triangular hole in the bracket and had pulled out a part of the comb and replaced it with grass and feathers. As the young sparrows grew I expected to see the bottom drop out of the nest, but it didn't; it lasted for a second brood. Portland, Ore?on. FB, OM FIELD AND STUDY The Vermilion Flycatcher at Santa Barbara.--On the x5th of March, ?9o7, on the Modoc Road west of Santa Barbara, I came upon a Vermilion Flycatcher. It was catching insects after its manner, perching between whiles npon the fence posts or the wire, and now and then betaking itself for a little to the top of a neighboring oak. It seemed but yesterday, tho it was four years ago, that I had seen my first bird of this kind (the first of many) doing the same thing, with the same phoebe-like flirt of its tail, from a wire fence at Tucson, Arizona. Here, as there, the bird was very "observable", and I stayed with it for fifteen minutes or more, admiring its brilliant color, and in my enthusiasm pointing it out to a passing school boy, to whom I lent my twelve-power field-glass for an observation. "Yes," he said, when I inquired if he had "got it"; "yes, it is red and everything." This, I understand from the Editor of Tr?E CONDOR, is at least one of the northernmos? rec- ords for the species in California.--BRADVORD TORR?, Newton Lower Falls, 2?rassachusetls. Where Does the Western Boundary Line Run for the Arizona Quail?--I re- cently made a trip from Mecca, California, around the western shore of the so-called Salton Sea to Calexico, on New River, and at that place we crossed to Lower California. We went thru the pass at the north end of the Cocopah range, into and down the valley that lies between the Cocopub and Coast Ranges for about 70 miles. We more than circled the former range without once getting out of the living ground of Lophorty?: garnbeli. How much further west or south they live I do not know, but would much like to. Having found them on the west side of the Cocopubs [ was not, of course, surprised to find them east of it. Kindly enlighten me thru Tt?]? CO/?DOR.--HI?RBI?RT BROWN, rttc$o?, ?Zlrizo?a. Notes from Clipperton and Coccos Islands.--In looking over "The Birds of Clipperton and Cocos Islands," by Messrs. Shodgrass and Heller, on my return from the Galapagos in x9o? , I noticed the absence from their list of several species that were present on the islands when our party called. We stopped at Clipperton Island November x9, x9ox , and went ashore for several hours. I saw on Clipperton Island in addition to the birds seen by Messrs. Shodgrass and Heller: Squalarola squalarola (Black-bellied Plover), two seen; Nurnenius hudsonicus (Hudsonfan Cur-