934 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1096 



ceived from my brother at Riverside has met with 

 so much appreciation at the Museum of His- 

 tory, Science and Art. The tortoise was a partio- 

 i3lar pet of mine, although a very stupid one. At 

 Riverside during his residence of fourteen years 

 he entertained a large number of visitors annually 

 and was locally well known. I anticipated a very 

 long life for the tortoise, at least a century, and 

 his untimely death has been a great disappoint- 

 ment. The following data concerning the speci- 

 men will doubtless be of interest to you. 



I found him in June, 1899, at Iguana Cove, 

 Albemarle Island, Galapagos Islands. At the time 

 of his capture he weighed 29 pounds, and was, I 

 presume, not much over a year old. He was car- 

 ried on the schooner, where he lived on the deck 

 with several adult tortoises and fed on Opuntia cac- 

 tus until we reached San Pedro Harbor. At River- 

 side he grew at a rapid pace during the first few 

 years and doubled his weight annually — at the 

 time of his death I should judge he was not over 

 sixteen or seventeen years of age. 



Mr. Ditmars, of the reptile department of the 

 New York Zoological Park, states that several of 

 his giant tortoises have died of inflammation of 

 the kidneys, due to resting on damp soil, and this 

 may doubtless explain the death of my specimen 

 at Riverside. 



You will find this tortoise referred to in a 

 paper on "The Reptiles of the Galapagos Is- 

 lands " by me published in the Proceedings of the 

 Washington Academy of Sciences, February, 1903, 

 Vol. 5, page 52. 



There is no record of its size at time of 

 capture, except as to weight, which was 29 

 pounds. At the time of its death it weighed 

 450 pounds and its carcass measured 41 inches 

 long, 31 wide and 21 high. Mr. William 

 Heller, who had personal care of the tortoise 

 for many years, writes me that it thrived won- 

 derfully on a diet of spineless cactus, milk- 

 weed, melons, oranges, etc. 



Frank S. Daggett 

 Museum op History. Science and Art, 

 Los Angeles, Calif. 



TWO PARTIAL-ALBINO BIRDS 



On the first three days in October, in and 

 near Webster Park, Orono, Me., there was ob- 

 served a partial-albino robin (Merula migra- 

 toria). I examined it carefully with a field- 

 glass. The white feathers are remiges, form- 



ing a white patch in each wing when the bird 

 is standing. When the bird flies the fluttering 

 white wing feathers give it a striking and 

 beautiful appearance which must attract the 

 attention even of the layman. In the left 

 wing the white quills include all the longest 

 primaries and extend far enough I think to 

 number 12 or 13 all told. Among the lesser 

 coverts of the left wing appear also two white 

 spots, each apparently formed by the tip of a 

 single feather. In the right wing the position 

 of the white quills is different: the longest 

 primaries (5 of them, I judge) appear per- 

 fectly normal; these are followed by about 7 

 white remiges. So far as I could see, the bird 

 is in all other respects quite normal. The 

 white terminal spots on the outer tail feathers 

 are conspicuous, but not abnormally so. The 

 white of the belly does not extend so far for- 

 ward as I have seen it on some normal speci- 

 mens. The white markings on the head, and 

 the very narrow edgings of the breast feathers 

 are as usual. The red of the breast is, I judge, 

 both brighter and darker than the average. 

 The bird is tame, frequents door-yards, and 

 ought to be seen by other observers on its 

 migration. To shoot such a bird and set up 

 its skin in a museum is a wanton destruction 

 of scientific material; if taken at all it should 

 be taken alive and used for breeding. 



On October 3, in Old Town, Me., I saw a 

 partial-albino house sparrow (Passer domes- 

 iicus), the white being in great masses on the 

 wings, so that in flight this individual locks 

 somewhat like a snowflake. In many years of 

 bird observation I never saw another house 

 sparrow with such an extensive albinism as 

 this one. Wallace CRAia 



University op Maine 



anopheles pseudopunctipennis 

 In the article entitled "The Eole of Ano- 

 pheles punctipennis Say in the Transmission 

 of Malaria," which appeared in the issue of 

 Science for December 17, 1915, an unfortu- 

 nate error occurs. In discussing the work of 

 Dupree and Knab's comments thereon it was 

 stated that the latter was inclined to believe 

 that the experiments had been conducted with 



