HISTORY OF OREGON ORNITHOLOGY [49] 



a lasting tribute to the laborious journeys he made in the pursuit of 

 knowledge of this new country. 



In his Journal, definite statements regarding birds are infrequent. On 

 August 19, 182.5, h e "Killed 2. females and 3 males of a fine species of 

 pigeon; feet, legs, and part of the beak yellow, a white ring round the 

 neck." This was evidently near the mouth of the Santiam River and is 

 our first definite record for the Band-tailed Pigeon. Various other refer- 

 ences to eagles, blue jays, horned owls, geese, vultures, and crows occur 

 but are always rather vague as to time and place. When it is considered 

 that he traveled much of his time on foot with only such supplies and 

 equipment as he and his companions could carry, the lack of detail in 

 notes on birds very definitely a side line with him is understandable. 



Douglas (182.8) did find time to report on some of the most interesting 

 birds. He described the California Condor and its nests and eggs (evidently 

 from word of mouth reports rather than personal observation) and stated: 



I have met with them as far to the north as 49 N. Lat. in the summer and autumn months, 

 but nowhere so abundantly as in the Columbian valley between the Grand Rapids and the 

 sea. . . . Specimens, male and female, of this truly interesting bird, which I shot in lat. 

 45.30.15., long. ii2..3.iz., were lately presented by the Council of the Horticultural Society 

 to the Zoological Society, in whose Museum they are now carefully deposited. 



In a paper read before the Linnaean Society December 16, 1818, and 

 later published in its Transactions (182.9) he discussed the presence and 

 enormous abundance of the Sage Hen and Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse 

 on the plains of the Columbia and reported the Oregon Ruffed Grouse as 

 an inhabitant of the coast of Oregon and Washington. He also described 

 from memory and notes the Plumed Quail his specimens having been 

 lost while crossing a tributary on the head of the Willamette in Novem- 

 ber, 182.6. 



Among the most interesting statements in this account of the grouse 

 and quail is one Douglas made about Tetrao [ = Lagopus] lagopus: "On the 

 north-west coast it exists as low as 45 7', the position of Mount Hood. 

 This is the same bird as the Scotch Ptarmigan." So far as we have been 

 able to ascertain, this note is the basis for all subsequent designation of 

 the ptarmigan as an Oregon species. No other ornithologist has noted 

 it south of the Goat Rocks, some 50 to 70 miles north of the Oregon line 

 in the wild jumble of peaks between Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens, 

 Washington, and Douglas does not state that he actually observed the 

 birds on Mount Hood. Certainly there have been no ptarmigan in Oregon 

 for many years, if indeed they were ever present. 



TOWNSEND AND NlJTTALL (1834-36) AND OTHERS 



FOLLOWING Douglas's departure nothing more was accomplished in the 

 study of the ornithology of the Oregon country until 1834, when John 

 Kirk Townsend and Thomas Nuttall started overland with a party from 



