[54] BIRDS OF OREGON 



trick by leading me to collect a number of curious looking Shore Larks directly in front of 

 the house of the constable, who proceeded to instill the fear of the law into my heart by a 

 fine of ten dollars. As, however, the birds subsequently proved to be the types of a new 

 form (^Eremophila [ = 0tocoris] alpcstris strigata), I have always considered that I got the worth 

 of my money. 1 



Almost contemporary with Bendire, Dr. Henry McElderry and Lt. 

 Willis Wittich, stationed at Fort Klamath during the late seventies, had 

 been collecting birds and making the notes that were compiled and pub- 

 lished by Dr. Edgar Alexander Mearns in 1879. Following this, James 

 Gushing Merrill, who was stationed at the same post from September 

 1886 to August 1887, published his own experiences in 1888. These notes 

 from Harney and Klamath Counties were for many years the greatest 

 contribution to Oregon ornithology and made the birds of these basins 

 much better known to the ornithological world than those from other 

 sections of the State. 



While these men were making their studies east of the Cascades, O. B. 

 Johnson's list of birds observed in Forest Grove, Portland, and East 

 Salem appeared in 1880. Many of his specimens are still preserved at the 

 University of Washington at Seattle. At about the same time Dr. Clinton 

 T. Cooke did considerable bird collecting in the Willamette Valley. He 

 wrote little, but his specimens have been available to the present authors 

 and have been valuable aids in formulating the statements regarding the 

 birds of western Oregon. 



Alfred Webster Anthony collected for many years in the vicinity of 

 Beaverton and in 1886 published a list of the birds of Washington County. 

 Many of his specimens are now in the Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh, 

 Pennsylvania. He later contributed a special list of birds from Portland 

 and vicinity for Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey's use in her Handbook of 

 Birds of the Western United States. Johnson's and Anthony's publications 

 were the most important on western Oregon birds until 1902., when 

 Arthur Roy Woodcock, then a student at Oregon Agricultural College, 

 published the first real list of the birds of the State, which he had com- 

 piled from his own notes on the birds in the vicinity of Corvallis, from 

 data obtained by correspondence with observers in various parts of the 

 State, and from a partial check of the literature. Woodcock's own notes 

 are authentic and valuable, and most of his skins are still available for 

 study at Corvallis; but he was somewhat unfortunate in the selection of 

 his observers and accepted many statements that, to say the least, are 

 dubious. Some of these species are here assigned to the hypothetical list, 

 and some of the distributional data are questioned in the present discussion 

 of other species. 



1 Through some oversight, Henshaw has here considered Albany to be the type locality of 

 Otocoris a. strigata, whereas the type specimen as now labeled in the National Museum is an 

 adult male from Fort Steilacoom, Washington; in his original description, however, Henshaw 

 did mention one of the adult females from Albany, Oregon. 



