Vol 'l9i9 XVI ] Eifrig, Birds of the Chicago Area. 515 



Chicago taxidermist. Unfortunately he did not record nor remember the 

 place and date of its capture, but was positive that it had been taken near 

 Chicago. 



Somateria spectabilis. King Eider. — On November 29, 1917, six or 

 seven of this species were shot out of a flock of about thirty, oft the Muni- 

 cipal Pier. They were all birds of the year, and one of them is now in 

 my collection. Woodruff's ' Birds of the Chicago Area,' 1907, does not 

 give it. 



Chen caerulescens. Blue Goose. — Stoddard saw a flock of about 

 forty of them, together with six Snow Geese (probably C. h. hyperboreus), 

 on the lake shore near Gary, October 21, 1916, from which he took a fine 

 adult male Blue Goose. He thinks they are probably rather common on 

 certain days during the fall migration at the south end of the lake. 



Branta canadensis. Canada Goose. — While the wedge-formed 

 battalions and the martial honking of this migrant are by no means un- 

 common here, I would like to record the red-letter day for numbers, that has 

 been unique in my experience here or in Canada or elsewhere. It was 

 October 23, 1917. We had the first snow of the season, the prelude to that 

 memorably severe winter; the atmosphere was thick, there was no sun. 

 At 1 o'clock in the afternoon a flock of from 500-1000 appeared from the 

 west; apparently right over my house in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago, 

 they seemed to become bewildered as to the direction of their course, and 

 after loud consultation they turned north, where they seemed to settle 

 in a prairie about a mile from here. At 4.30 o'clock 30 flocks were seen, 

 each wedge-shaped and touching here and there; at 7 o'clock the air was 

 again full of cries of large numbers, as also at 10 o'clock p.m. Whether 

 any, and if so how many passed while 1 was in the class room, I do not 

 know . 



Some winters a flock remains in the vicinity, spending the day out 

 on the edge of the ice in the lake, and the night inland on some cornfield 

 of the previous season. Thus, January 23, 1916, about 200 were flying 

 south. March 18, 1916, Stoddard and 1 came upon what seemed a con- 

 vention or debating club of about forty of them. They were on the edge 

 of the ice in the lake near Millers, and were all talking at once at the top of 

 their voices. As the ice is then piled up high by the winter's storms, on the 

 south end of the lake, we could not get within a quarter of a mile to them, 

 and they seemed to know it, and kept right on. On April 1, 1916, while in 

 the same place, a flock of thirty came from the south; at first they were in 

 the usual formation; suddenly, as if by command, they straightened out in 

 company fine, and then suddenly and simultaneously they dropped to the 

 lake, head first, as if they wanted to dive to the bottom. It was a most 

 remarkable sight; the quickness and precision of the movements were 

 baffling. 



Nycticorax nycticorax naevius. Black-crowned Night Heron. — 

 This species must find it hard to hold its own against the army of boys 

 and men with shooting irons pouring out from the great city into the sur- 



