96 General Notes. 



Californian Prairie Chickens. — It is always safest for naturalists 

 to salt down newspaper extracts on scientific subjects, and usually best to 

 leave them permanently in pickle, as the proverbial " grain of salt " is 

 rarely sufficient to correct their bad savor. The severe attempts to cater 

 to the marvelling tastes of their readers lead editors of newspapers to cor- 

 rupt the foundation of facts on which stories sometimes rest, until we 

 scarcely know whether they have any real foundation. Thus, as quoted in 

 the " Naturalist," for February, p. 124, the " Salinas Index" of California 

 tries to make out that the Prairie Chicken has followed the Central Pacific 

 Railroad-track from Nebraska Avest to Winnemucca, and from there strik- 

 ing " off the track," reached Surprise and Shasta valleys, California. I can 

 scarcely believe that Dr. Coues or any well-posted ornithologist should let 

 such a- blunder go uncorrected, but as it is, it needs only a few references 

 to set it right. 



In Vol. VI of Pacific R. R. Reports, p. 94, Dr. Newberry, in 1857, wrote 

 that he found Tetrao phasianellus from Canoe Creek, fifty miles north- 

 east of Fort Reading, Cal., more and more abundant toward the northeast 

 into Oregon. It was, indeed, from its abundance in the Upper Columbia 

 River country, that Ord, as long ago as 1815, named it T. columbianus, 

 now retained as the name of this variety as compared with the true T. 

 phasianellus of British America, both being chiefly Western birds, though 

 extending east to Wisconsin, perhaps to Illinois, where they are con- 

 founded with the more eastern Prairie Chicken, 



All this was clearly set forth in the latest work on Californian Ornithol- 

 ogy, published in 1870, and even the southern limit near lat 39° in Ne- 

 vada indicated.* 



If the species had any tendency to spread in California with the in- 

 crease of agriculture, it has now had more than twenty years to do so, but 

 from the account quoted does not seem to have made much if any prog- 

 ress. Attempts to naturalize it just north of San Francisco Bay have been 

 made, but though it may succeed there, the climate of most other parts of 

 California does not appear well suited to it. — J. G. Cooper, M. D., Hay- 

 wood, Cal. 



Report of the Second Capture of the Orange-crowned War- 

 bler (Helminthophaga celata) IN New Hampshire. — Mr. Edward G. 

 Gardiner, of Boston, informs me that a specimen of this rare Warbler was 

 taken at the Isles of Shoals, September 9, 1877, by two young collectors, 

 Messrs. Outram and Edward A. Bangs. The bird was a female, aad was 

 in company with a small flock, supposed to be of the same species, though 

 no more were captured. Three specimens of this bird have been recorded 



* Ridgway, in Bull. Essex lust. 1874, gives only " Upper Humboldt Valley," 

 near lat. 41°, but it was found near Salt Lake City, by Nelson, in 1872. 



