Field Notes 37 



the west were noted, the Black-throated Blue on October 6 and the 

 Black-throated Green on October 8. 



Sprague Pipit: This species is regarded as sufficiently un- 

 common in Nebraska as to make the collection of a specimen on 

 October 1 seem worthy of note. 



Sage Thrasher: A single specimen was seen and collected in 

 the sage brush a few miles north of the mouth of Monroe Canyon 

 on September 27. But few definite records of the Sage Thrasher 

 are at hand for Nebraska, but it is believed to occur regularly in 

 small numbers in the badlands of Sioux county. 



R. W. Dawson. 

 Lincoln, Nebraska. 



The Present Status of the Whooping Crane. 



There seem to be no published records of the occurrence of the 

 Whooping Crane since the note recording the taking of specimens at 

 Wood Lake, Cherry county, and Grand Island, Hall county, Ne- 

 braska, was published in The Auk, 1913, page 430, by the writer, 

 hence the following notes possess considerable interest, especially 

 as the suspicion has been expressed that possibly the species had 

 become extinct. 



On March 29, 1919, a small flock of Whooping Cranes was seen 

 near Kearney, Buffalo county, Nebraska, on an island in the Platte 

 river. In company with Mr. C. A. Black of Kearney, the writer 

 interviewed the observers, who are wholly to be relied upon, a few 

 hours after the birds were seen. The "white cranes" (= Whooping 

 Cranes) were in a large flock of "blue cranes" (= Sandhill Cranes), 

 but had departed upon our reaching the place late in the same day, 

 though most of the smaller species remained. In the spring of 

 1920, Mr. C. A. Black, who is an able and wholly reliable field orni- 

 thologist, saw two Whooping Cranes in a flock of Sandhill Cranes 

 flying northward at a considerable height, at Kearney, on April 2, 

 and on April 14 he saw a flock of 56 Whooping Cranes at the same 

 locality. 



Since the publishing of the 1913 note above referred to, there 

 have been several Whooping Cranes killed in Nebraska, according 

 to reports. On March 10, 1915, one was killed at Ogallala, Keith 

 county, and is now in a private collection at that place, and in the 

 fall of 1915 two were shot on the Platte River in Hall county, north 

 of Prosser, but were destroyed by fire in 1917; in the spring of 

 1917 one was shot near Minden, and is in a collection there, and in 

 the fall of that year it is reported that three were killed near Kear- 

 ney (by a hunter who buried the birds through fear of the law) 

 and another along the Platte, somewhere near its mouth; finally, 

 in the spring of 1918 six were seen on the Platte river near Kear- 

 ney, by a very reliable hunter, who, to his credit, abstained from 



