1909] The Ottawa Naturalist. 127 



residents are given so late for 1907 is owing to the fact that Mr. Stansell 

 only arrived at Stony Plain about April 1st of that year. And if some 

 birds marked as common have onty been seen late in the year for the 

 first time, that is no doubt due to the little leisure time that Mr. Stansell 

 has from his work. That section is no doubt an interesting one from an 

 ornithological point of view, as witness the breeding there of the 

 Bohemian Waxwing, Evening Grosbeak, etc., and it is to be hoped that 

 Mr. Stansell will hereafter regularly send in bird news to the Naturalist 

 and thus further elucidate the conditions of bird-life there. A number 

 of the species enumerated in this list will eventuall}'^, no doubt, prove to 

 be the western subspecies of the ones named, and perhaps Bonaparte's 

 Gull will turn out to be Franklin's Gull. 



G. E. 



THE SO-CALLED WHITE WILD OATS AND WHAT 



THEY ARE. 

 By Norman Criddle, Treesbank, Man. 



There has been considerable apprehension among farmers 

 within recent years, through the discovery of white oats which 

 resemble in their nature, or seed form, the wild species Avena 

 jatiia. These oats were first brought into prominence some two 

 or three years ago by the different agricultural institutions of 

 the country whose experts found it advisable, pending investi- 

 gation, to class them as "wild oats" when judging grain for 

 seed purposes, and to condemn the sample in which they were 

 found. As this type of oats has become better known, and 

 carefully looked for, examples have been found in nearly every 

 variety "of cultivated oats, and, as a matter of fact, there are 

 - probably very few that are entirely free from them, either black 

 or white. 



As the problem of what these oats were and how they were 

 going to affect the interests of grain growers became a prominent 

 one economically, and as it also became an interesting subject 

 botanicallv, I devoted some time to it during the last three 

 years with the result that I am now in a position to throw some 

 light upon the question. 



One of the first things that attracts attention to these 

 so-called "white wild oats" is their close resemblance, in the 

 seed form, to the variety from which they were selected. There 

 is, however, one striking difference, namely, in every case the 

 supposed wild oat, or as I shall term it in future, the sport, is 

 always awned with a strong twisted black and white awn, and 



*This does not refer to albino wild oats which can a' ways be recog- 

 nized by their close resemblance to the black ones. 



