~ ‘ ’ = 
ProvyinciAL Museum Report. OLE 


this bird when he worked in the Department prior to my joining the service, I did not obtain 
any more information concerning it for some time. 
However, on January 24th, 192g) Captain Oliver G. Harbell, an old personal friend of the 
lute John Fannin, happened to call at my oflice, and knowing that he knew Mr. Fannin for many 
years, I asked him when they first became acquainted. Captain Harbell said that he arrived in 
Victoria on October 13th, 1875, from St. John, N.B., and after being here a few days he went over 
to Burrard Inlet and was living at Moodyville (opposite where the City of Vancouver is to-day), 
and about this time he made the acquaintance of Mr. Fannin. After a few more questions I asked 
him about the collection of birds Mr. Fannin had, and if he remembered what white birds were 
in the collection. He informed me that the only white bird he could remember was a white 
heron that had been killed by an Indian on the shores of Burrard Inlet in the latter part of 
May, 1879. He secured this bird from the Indian, and knowing that Mr. Fannin was desirous 
of obtaining all the specimens possible, he carried it over to Granville, on the southern side 
of Burrard Inlet (now the City of Vancouver), to Mr. Pannin, who mounted it and added it to 
his private collection. 
The following is a copy of a letter that Captain Oliver G. Harbell has written me under his 
own signature, and I think this should settle, once and for all, any doubts concerning the 
occurrence of the plumed egret (Mesophoye intermedia) as an accidental visitant in British 
Columbia, and not only is it an addition to the “ List of British Columbia Birds,’ but also a 
record of an addition to the * Birds ef North America 7 :— 
‘““VictortA, B.C., January 24th, 1923. 
“ F. Kermode, Esa., 
Director, Provincial Museum, Victoria, B.C. 
“T, Oliver G. Harbell, of Victoria City, do hereby declare I am the person who secured the 
specimen of white heron (Wesophoyx intermedia) from an Indian at Burrard Inlet in the latter 
part of May, 1879. At the time I was living at Moodyville. The bird was freshly killed and 
I took it across the inlet to Granyille and gaye it to John Fannin, who skinned and mounted 
the specimen for his own private collection. This was prior to his becoming Curator of the 
Provincial Museum at Victoria, B.C. 
“The late Mr. John Fannin, after being appointed Curator of the Provincial Museum at 
Victoria for the Provincial Government, moved all his private collection to Victoria, to form 
the nucleus of the Museum. The specimen in the Museum to-day is the same one that I gave the 
late John Fannin. 
“(Signed) Oxiver G. HARBELL.” 
Nores ON THE IceELAND GuLx (LARUS (LEUCOPTERUS?) ). 
In the Annual Report for the year 1920 note was made of the capture of two specimens of 
the white-winged gull at Kildonan, on Barkley Sound, by William McKay. As some exceptions 
have been taken to the classification of these gulls, Mr. P. A. Taverner while here in September, 
1922, examined these two specimens and made sketches for comparison with the birds in the 
Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa. Mr. Taverner wrote me from Ottawa on October 17th, 
1922, as follows :— 
“Your specimens are practically identical with two specimens we have from the Arctie 
Coast of Alaska that Dwight examined and pronounced leucopterus. However, he admits that 
his only distinction between leucopterus and hyperboreus is size, and these birds just come within 
the limits as laid down by him. He is assuming, therefore, that hyperboreus never gets smaller 
_than his determined minimum and that anything smaller must of necessity be leucopterus. 'To 
admit anything else would make his position on the form L. h. barrovianus, on which he has 
stated himself very strongly, untenable. 
“From my experience I do not think that ornithologists generally realize how great the size 
variation is in these large gulls. In the glauecous-winged especially the extremes are compara- 
tively enormous, and considerably more than would account for the linking of these small and 
large hyperboreus. I see no reason for separating specifically these small white-winged gulls 
from the larger hyperboreus.—P. A. TAVERNER.” 
I sent these two birds to Mr. W. C. Henderson, Acting-Chief, Biological Survey, Washington, 
D.C., asking that Dr. C. H. Oberholser be given them for determination, who returned ther 
labelled as barrovianus. 
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