Proceedings 45 
the place on the N. American Continent that the Peewit 
takes with us. On the beach, too, you see the Kildeer in 
flocks along with the Snowy Plover, the Least Sandpiper 
and Long-billed Curlew, whilst here and there an American 
Pipit runs daintily over the sand. 
The Pier at Santa Barbara in November was an excel- 
lent place from which to watch the sea-birds. Long rows 
of Gulls sat on the sides of the pier whilst the buoys, 
floating in the bay, were the favorite perches of the Cor- 
morants. From the pier head a great Brown Pelican was 
generally to be seen lazily floating about ; and Loons and 
Grebes were busily swimming and diving. But the most 
abundant bird in the bay was the little black White-winged 
Scoter. For hours together you could watch them playing 
about amongst the waves, diving through a breaker or 
floating over a roller. On shore they were very helpless, 
waddling along ina feeble manner, sothat I easily cut off the 
retreat of more than one. When handled they were very inert. 
I must close this paper on Californian birds with a des- 
cription of the Water Fowl on Elsinore Lake in Riverside 
County, Southern California, which I visited last February. 
Twice before in my life I had seen a somewhat similar as- 
semblage of birds, firstly on a bank at Hirankera in the 
Central Provinces of India, and secondly on Lake Men- 
zaleh in Lower Egypt. 
At Elsinore Lake, the most abundant species was the 
American Coot, which was numbered by thousands. Then 
came hundreds of Shoveller Ducks; nextly the little Ruddy 
Duck, rather a helpless species. In the shallow pools on 
the edge of the Lake it was easy to ride the Ruddies down. 
They tried to escape by diving till they got into shallows 
where they were readily caught. Five or six we took home 
with us refused to live. The other dwellers on the Lake 
were the Pintail, Mallard, American Widgeon, Canvas-back, 
and Green-winged Teal. 
Out in the centre of the Lake were flocks of Geese, the 
American White-fronted, and the Canada Goose. At dawn, 
and again about 3 o’clock, the Geese rose in flocks and 
flew over the hills into the San Jacinto Valley to feed in 
