CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME. 



89 



WHITE MALLARDS. 

 A white mallard duck, the only albino 

 mallard reported during the past open 

 season, was killed in December, 1916, 

 near Live Oak, California, by Sam 

 Lamme, keeper of the West Butte Coun- 

 try Club. The bird, a male, has been 

 mounted and is on exhibition at the club- 

 house. Newspaper publicity has uncov- 

 ered the fact that another mounted 

 specimen of an albino mallard is in the 

 possession of Colonel J. W. Dorsey of 

 San Francisco. Still another specimen, 

 a female, taken at Gridley, Butte County, 

 several years ago, is in the collection of 

 the California Museum of Vertebrate 

 Zoology. — H. C. Bryant. 



BIRDS LOSE THEIR WAY IN FOG. 



During the early part of October sev- 

 eral reports appeared in newspapers that 

 numerous song birds alighted on ships far 

 off the coast during heavy tule fogs. 

 Most of the references to the kind of birds 

 alighting on ships were couched in such 

 generalities as : "hawks, blackbirds, spar- 

 rows and crows." Although we have at- 

 tempted to secure more specific informa- 

 tion the following facts only have been 

 verified. 



A large number of birds, of several dif- 

 ferent species, alighted on the Danish 

 motor ship "Chile" when sixty miles off 

 the Golden Gate, in October, 1916. One 

 of the birds, obtained and held in captivity 

 for a short time by Mrs. M. C. Terry, from 

 a detailed description appears to have been 

 a spurred towhee {Pipilo maculatus). 



Dr. M. C. Terry, of the United States 

 Public Health Service, saw a number of 



English sparrows and a warbler of some 

 sort on the deck of the Norwegian steam- 

 ship "San Joaquin," which docked on Oc- 

 tober 21, 1916. These birds were said to 

 have come aboard the ship when it was 

 off the lightship, about ten miles off "the 

 heads." The pilot of the ship reported 

 that blackbirds and a small owl also came 

 on board. 



On the same day the captain of the 

 British steamer "Dunstan," sixteen days 

 from Panama, reported that many dif- 

 ferent kinds of birds alighted on the ship 

 from ten to twenty miles off shore. He 

 estimated that as many as 200 birds were 

 on the ship at one time. Some of them 

 were quite tame and lit upon his arms and 

 shoulders. 



The above information, although lacking 

 in scientific detail, still points to the fact 

 that many land birds occur at some dis- 

 tance off shore, especially during heavy 

 fogs. The taking of such a permanently 

 resident species as the spurred towhee 

 many miles off shore is of more than 

 ordinary interest. — H. C. Bryant. 



ANTELOPE APPEAR IN NEW 

 LOCALITY. 



On September 9, 1910, I saw one ante- 

 lope {Antilocapra americana) at Coon 

 Camp Flat, in the northern part of Las- 

 sen County. There were tracks of two 

 more smaller ones that I did not see. 

 Twenty years ago antelope were quite 

 plentiful in this locality, but for a good 

 many years none has been seen there. 

 There are several bands in the eastern 

 part of the county.— F. P. Cady. 



Fig. 33. Boat load of sardines and unloading sardines at San Diego. The sardine 

 run has been unusually large this past winter. Photographs by Webb Toms. 



