46 Proceedings 
the grain fields. They were too wary to give you a fair 
chance with the rifle. ‘“Wa-wa, honk-hwonk,” were their 
respective cries. 
On October 29th, 1891, Wild Geese were passing over 
Sissor, Liskyou County, in flocks of forty to one hundred. 
One flock numbered about 200 birds. Their “wa-wa” 
showed them to be White-fronted. About 2,000 must have 
passed over in two hours, flying southward. The day was 
wet and cloudy, with a slight wind from the south. Popular 
report says that each flock has its recognised leader, Now 
more than once I saw the leader take a course which the 
main flock refused to follow, with‘the result that the former 
leader, with a few followers, dropped aside and rejoined 
the flock but no longer took the lead. The skeins were 
usually V shaped with smaller Vs branching from the 
main V, 
A flock of five White Pelicans kept well out in the mid- 
dle of Lake Elsinore, along with the Geese. 
The other species seen there were two kinds of Grebe, 
Western Gull, Royal Tern, Great Blue Heron, American 
Avocet, Kildeer Plover, and Least Sandpiper. 
I find I have mentioned exactly 100 species. Joseph 
Grinnell, in his ‘Birds of the Pacific Slope: of Los Angeles 
County,” enumerates 300. 
I now come to my second subject, namely the Plants of 
California. 
One is struck much more by the likeness of the Califor- 
nian flora to the British, than by its dissimilarity, The 
London Catalogue includes ninety-two Natural Orders of 
Flowering Plants. The flora of Western Middle Califor- 
nia includes ninety-seven. Of these, seventy-nine Natural 
Orders are common to Great Britain and California. Thir- 
teen small Natural Orders (containing eighteen genera) of 
our Catalogue are missing from the Californian flora ; and 
eighteen Natural Orders (containing thirty genera) figure 
in it that are not in our Catalogue. 
Dealing with species, 219 are common to both floras ; 
but of these 142 are grasses, or weeds of cultivation which 
have gained a footing in California, leaving only seventy- 
