1 68 Recent Literature. \j^k 



greediness the birds swallow many of the seeds. Mr. Webber experi- 

 mented with a captive Mockingbird and found that the seeds were 

 readily swallowed with the fruit and were evacuated in from fifteen 

 minutes to an hour in good condition for germination. During about 

 four hours the bird ate and evacuated fifty-one seeds. A number of these 

 were planted, and a fair proportion grew into healthy young plants. The 

 Mockingbird is also responsible for a third method of dissemination. It 

 will readily be seen that, as the bird feeds, many of the seeds drop directly 

 down. Some of them fall into the crown of upturned leaves immediately 

 beneath the fruit-stalk and stick there. After the cluster has ripened all 

 its fruit, a lateral branch develops and shoots up beside the fruit-stalk, 

 bearing a new crown of leaves and thus prolonging the trunk, while the 

 old leaves reflex and point downwards. With the reflexion of these leaves, 

 the seeds, now dry, roll or slide down the inclined plane thus formed and 

 are shot out to a safe distance from the parent plant. Those seeds which 

 originally fall between the leaves of the crown naturally reach the ground 

 in the same way by the reflexed blades of the previous leaf-cluster. This 

 yucca has in the larva of a moth another aid to dissemination, but that is 

 a story for the entomologist. — F. II. A. 



Loomis on California Water Birds. 1 — The present paper gives the re- 

 sults of Mr. Loomis's observations made off Monterey, California, from 

 Dec. ii, 1894, to Jan. 13, 1895. Forty-three species are formally noticed, 

 of which 11 are Gulls of the genus Larus — probably a number not ex- 

 ceeded on any coast, at this or any other season. The annotations relate 

 generally to the manner of occurrence of the various species, but in sev- 

 eral cases include descriptions of little-known phases of plumage. The 

 Ancient Murrelet (Synthliborhamphus antiquus) is reported as common, 

 wintering in considerable numbers on the coast of California, although pre- 

 viously recorded as a California bird, as Mr. Loomis observes, apparently 

 from only a single specimen taken off Monterey in January, 1874. Mr. 

 Loomis also reports the Mew Gull (Larus canus) as apparently common 

 on the California coast in winter, although its distribution in the second 

 edition of the A. O. U. 'Check-List' is stated to be ''Europe and Asia; 

 accidental in Labrador?." Mr. Loomis calls attention, however, to a 

 former record for California by Mr. Henshaw (Auk, II, p. -3-)- 



Preceding the annotated list (pp. --14 ) Mr. Loomis presents and 

 discusses the general facts of migration as observed in respect to the 

 water birds of the California coast in winter. He brings into special 

 prominence the evidence of a southward migration in winter to breeding- 

 grounds in the southern hemisphere of certain species of Shearwaters, and 



1 California Water Birds, No. II. Vicinity of Monterey in Midwinter. By 

 Leverett M. Loomis, Curator of the Department of Ornithology in the Califor- 

 nia Academy of Sciences. Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci., Ser. 2, Vol. VI, 1896, pp. 

 1-30, with Map. (Feb. 21, 1896.) 



