362 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 



existenfo, as action to curtail this shooting might be attempted in thi> li^ht 

 of such information. 



Due to the necessary expense, a complete coverage of (he brant areas 

 could not be made, but information will be assembled as far as possible to ren- 

 der a reasonable appraisal of existing conditions in all districts for the winter of 

 1933-34. 



(Signed) Arthur S. Einarsen. 



Upon receipt of this report, I wrote Einarsen drawing his attention 

 to the statement in the second paragraph of his report to the effect 

 that brant were noted along the Washington ocean coast after Novem- 

 ber 1, but few entered the bays until the last of that month. I com- 

 mented to him upon similar habits that I have noted in the past in this 

 species along the California coast where we ajDparently have an early 

 fall flight of brant, some of which appear off our shores in mid- 

 October, but the birds do not enter our bays in numbers until 

 after mid-November. One theory that I have in this regard is that 

 these early south-bound birds are migrating to Lower California and 

 they apparently do not stop except for brief rests along our coast. 

 Another theory that I suggested to Einarsen might account for the 

 habits of the Washington coast brant as well is that the spawning of 

 our herring may be a factor in governing the time at which brant enter 

 our bays. In preceding years I have noticed that the arrival of these 

 birds on Tomales Bay has closely coincided with the first spawning of 

 our herring {Clwpea pallasii), further that the early spawning schools 

 of herring deposit their eggs on isolated patches of eel grass in different 

 parts of the bay, which are very noticeably the patches of eel grass 

 first utilized by brant for food. The fact that the first appearance of 

 numbers of brant on Tomales Bay in several different seasons has closely 

 coincided with the commpucement of herring spawning and the fact 

 that the birds feed mainly where these fish have spawned, are respon- 

 sible for my opinion in this regard. 



In response to this suggestion, Einarsen kindly replied as follows, 

 which seems to settle the question in tliis regard : 



I can see that there, perhaps, are some points of difference in the habits 

 of black brant in regard to their custom, in California, in foraging on eel- 

 grass covered with herring spawn. From years of experience on the bays and 

 inlets of Puget Sound, I have become acquainted with all of the herring 

 spawning grounds, the majority of which are in shallow water where eel-grass 

 abounds, all hough there are a few deep water spawning areas also. Peculiarly 

 brant are not found on any of the spawning grounds, which is entirely at 

 variance with the California situation. Our local herring {Clupca pallusii) 

 begin spawning during the month of January and continue until about the 

 middle of May. Many of these favored spots, to which they retvirn to spawn 

 year after year, are in the center of the brant waters, notably Hales I'ass, a 

 portion of Bellingham Bay, the Duckabush Flats, near Brinuon in the Hood 

 Canal district, and Birch Bay, a short distance from the exceptionally heavy 

 concentration of brant, near Sandy Point, Gulf of Georgia. As I have spent 

 a great deal of time at all of these spawning grounds, I feel justified in making 

 the statement that in I'uget Sound I have never seen a solitary brant taking 

 advantage of this abundant food, although I have fine pictorial records of 

 thousands of other birds that congregate annually, during the herring spawn- 

 ing season, to solve their food problem. 1 shall devote more time during the 

 present season to substantiate these statements. 



At Director of Game Ovenden's request, Einarsen and other mem- 

 bers of the Department conducted a brant census in W^ashington on 



