510 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



from California northward. To adopt the last course would be 

 naming a third subspecies, which is obviously intermediate; so he 

 wisely accepted the first alternative, which restricts the name ?ies- 

 peria to the birds that breed "in the peninsula of Lower California 

 from the Cape district north at least to lattitude 31." As for com- 

 parison with eastern birds, he was "unable to find any satisfactory 

 mensural differences between upper Californian and Eastern birds, 

 not even as to forking of tail; * * * there is greater aggregate 

 difference between birds of upper California and those of southern 

 Lower California than there is between the former and those of 

 the eastern United States; the 'slightly paler' coloration of Cali- 

 fornia females is a difficult diagnostic character to use, because of 

 the great range of variation in intensity and extent of the whiteness — 

 many Eastern and Californian birds being indistinguishable; in the 

 material examined, all Cape district females are distinguishable from 

 Eastern females on basis of color, while nearly all males, as well as 

 females, are distinguishable on basis of size." 



Mr. Brewster (1902) had this to say about the habits of the western 

 martin : 



Regularly each afternoon, during May and the first week of June, a few 

 congregated over an open space in front of a hunter's cabin. They usually 

 flew at a considerable height, but the males every now and then pitched down- 

 ward nearly to the earth, descending with great velocity and making a boom- 

 ing noise very like that of the eastern Nighthawk. This remarkable habit, 

 unknown in the common Martin, was constantly practised here, but, curiously 

 enough, it was not once observed at Triunfo, where Mr. Frazar found the 

 Western Martins abundant during the last three weeks of June. Belonging to 

 the mine at this latter place, was an immense wood-pile covering over three 

 acres and harboring great numbers of long-horned beetles upon which the 

 Martins and Texan Nighthawks feed greedily. The Martins appeared every 

 afternoon, a little before sunset, to the number of two or three hundred, and 

 skimmed back and forth over the wood-pile until twilight fell. * * * They 

 disappeared suddenly and totally, immediately after a succession of heavy 

 showers early in July, and were not afterwards met with excepting at San 

 Jos6 del Cabo, where a few, evidently migrating, were seen passing southward 

 in late August and early September. 



Mr. Bryant records the Western Martin from several places in the northern 

 portions of Lower California, and says that it has been found nesting by Mr. 

 Belding in dead pines at Hansen's. Mr. Anthony states that in the neighbor- 

 hood of San Fernando, it is "not uncommon at the mission and an occasional 

 pair was seen in other localities, nesting in Woodpecker holes in the giant cactus." 



The measurements of the only two eggs, from Lower California, 

 that I have been able to locate are 25.4 by 17.3 and 24.9 by 17.3 milli- 

 meters, hardly differing any in size or in other respects from eggs of 

 the species elsewhere. 



