54 Food of Dii'ds. [zoe 



nor any other that I knew. The name of Desert lyily will fit 

 this plant perfectly, and this is the meaning of the generic name. 

 The leaves are flat and narrow and not terete as would be 

 inferred from my original description. The pollen grains are 

 large, acute at each end and elliptical. The tip of the anthers 

 just equals the style in flower. Capsule ovate to oval, scarcely 

 ^crested. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXV. 



ErEmocrinum: " A " plant natural size, " B " flower and pedicel enlarged 

 three diameters, "C" pod enlarged four diameters, "D" stamen enlarged 

 six diameters, showing the auricled base of anther, " E " segment of perianth 

 showing nerves, enlarged three diameters, "Fi" cross-section of upper 

 part of leaf, " F 2 " cross-section of lower part of leaf. 



CymopTERUS: "A I " seed of C. Fanyi showing wings, "A 2" same 

 with wider wings, "B i" seed of C. A' ewberryi war. alaius viiihont wings on 

 back, " B 2 " same with wings developed, one of them corky thickened, "C '* 

 C. glomeratus with wings thickened as much as in C. Panyi one form, "D " 

 C. Newberryi wdth one rib thickened nearly as much as the lateral ones, a 

 common occurrence; "E" Cytnopterus Ibapensis Jones; "F" C. longipes with 

 some of the wings enlarged in the middle after the fashion of the above; 

 "G" C. Jonesii. The enlargement of each is shown by the fraction 

 underneath. 



NOTES ON THE FOOD OF BIRDS. I. 



BY WALTER E. BRYANT. 



Western Grebe. Aichmophoms occidentalis. The stomach 

 of a young one collected on Merced Eake, San Francisco, 

 was distended with feathers, some of them more than 100 mm. in 

 length. The presence of feathers in the stomachs of Podicipidse 

 has been observed before and attributed to the individual 

 swallowing them while preening its plumage, but in this instance 

 the bird was in downy plumage, and I may add that feathers 

 alone comprised the contents of the stomach. I have also found 

 a few feathers in the stomach of an adult, which was in poor 

 condition, evidently having been suffering for some time from a 

 gun-shot wound, as algae were growing to the satiny-white breast 

 as they do to the bottoms of boats. In more than a score of 

 individuals of this species which I have dissected there were 

 found small fishes or nothing. 



