ZOOLOGY. 91 



CHARADRIUS VOCIFERUS. 

 Killdeer. 



The killdeer plover is everywhere common throughout California and Oregon. Scarcely a 

 day passed on our march in which we did not see them. 



CHARADRIUS VIRGINIACUS. 



The Golden Plover. 

 Perhaps less common than in the eastern States, but not rare in California and Oregon. 



GRUS CANADENSI . 

 The Brown Crane. 



This, the only species of crane which we saw at the west, is quite common, at different seasons, 

 in nearly all parts of California and the Pacific territories. In the autumn and winter it is abun 

 dant on the prairies of California, and is always for sale in the markets of San Francisco, where 

 it is highly esteemed as an article of food. In August, we frequently saw them about the 

 Klamath lakes, and early in September, while in the Cascade mountains, in Oregon, the cranes 

 were a constant feature of the scenery of the beautiful but lonely mountain meadows in which 

 we camped. 



We found them always exceedingly shy and difficult of approach, but not unfrequently the 

 files of their tall forms stretching above the prairie grass, or their discordant and far-sounding 

 screams suggested the presence of the human inhabitants of the region, whose territory was 

 now, for the first time, invaded by the white man. 



The cranes nest in these alpine meadows, and retreat to the milder climate of the valleys of 

 California on the approach of winter. In Oregon they begin to move southward in October. 



ARDEA HERODIAS. 

 Great Blue CranQ. 



This bird is more common in California than in any portion of the eastern States with which 

 I am familiar. On San Pablo bay, in the Straits of Carquines, and along up the Sacramento 

 one is rarely out of sight of them, and not unfrequently half a dozen or more are seen together, 

 either sitting on the low trees or watching in the shoal water for their food. On Pit river, in 

 the lake basin, on the Des Chutes, Willamette, and Columbia, we found them abundant, but 

 nowhere so numerous as in the Sacramento valley. 



Specimens were given me by Lieutenant Trowbridge, U. S. A., collected at Cape Flattery, 

 and I have seen them from still further north. All agree closely in plumage with the eastern 

 bird, and its habits are everywhere the same. 



ARDEA OCCIDENT ALIS. 



The White Heron. 



We saw the white egret in several different localities on our route, but most abundantly on 

 San Pablo bay, where we killed several, and where, sitting so white and motionless at intervals 

 along the shore, they give a peculiar character to the landscape. 



They were found by us on the Columbia, and they range still further northward. 

 13 BB 



