VOL. I. ] Notices of some California Birds. 99 
it is found south in winter to California, but he gives no authority 
for the statement. 
These ducks are very expert swimmers and divers, frequenting 
rapid mountain streams, where they are secured with great difficulty. 
They feed mostly upon aquatic insects; and the young ducks are 
quite palatable. I think they nest in rocks in this State, and per- 
haps in trees also, as they are said to do so elsewhere. 
Probably the whooping crane (Grus americana) visits north- 
ern California in winter. In the fall of 1884, I suppose I saw a 
flock of about twenty of these birds flying over the tules on Butte 
Creek, Sutter County, and another flock of about the same number, 
April 15, 1891, near Gridley, Butte County. Both flocks were large 
white cranes, with black wing tips, and the latter flock was soaring 
in the manner of sand-hill cranes. 
Mr. S. C. Phillips, who was with me when I saw the flock of 
this year, said he had several times seen the same kind of birds 
when hunting.on Butte Creek. Mr. Anthony, in the dzé of April, 
1886, mentions the occurrence of this species in Oregon. 
Heretofore the Texan nighthawk ( Chordetles texensis) has not 
been found in California north of San Bernardino Valley, as noted 
by Mr. F. Stephens, who considers it a rare summer resident there, 
but I saw about a dozen of this species in the hills opposite 
Knight’s Ferry, Stanislaus County, June 5, 1891, and shot and 
preserved one, which is in the collection of the California Academy 
of Sciences. I anticipated finding it here, as ever since June, 1885 
—when I think I got (but lost) one of this species in the foothills 
below Grass Valley, Nevada County —I have thought it might be 
found occasionally to near the head of the Sacramento Valley. 
_ The most satisfactory result of about a month’s collecting along 
the Knight's Ferry, Big Oak Flat and Yosemite road, in May and 
_ June of this year, was the taking of three specimens of the Big Tree 
thrush ( Zurdus seqguoiensis) in Yosemite Valley. I think—and 
Mr. Bryant agrees with me—that these specimens, with the types, 
put the species on a good basis. It arrives in this State in spring, 
after the dwarf thrush leaves it; is much more timid than the 
_ dwarf thrush; never jerks its wings as the latter does; never has 
_ been heard, by me, to utter the “chip,” or “chip-chip,’’ that the 
dwarf thrush so frequently utters when observed; is fleeter of 
