July, 1907 ENGIvISH SPARROW NOTES 109 



The Bulletin on the English Sparrow, published by the Department of Agriculture 

 in 1889, showed that none of the region south of Monterey had been invaded. 



When I first came to Portland in 1887, I didn't find an Englisher in the city. 

 The bird was unknown here. The first pair likely came in the following year; for 

 in the spring of 1889, I found a pair had reared a family about an ivy-covered 

 house on Fourth and Pine streets. Since that time I have watched the population 

 of the city grow till there is hardly a street that isn't overcrowded from the river to 

 the hills. 



The most unique example of sparrow nest-building we found one year when 

 we discovered an Englisher in possession of a hornet's nest. The hornets had 

 built up under the projecting eaves of the front porch of a cottage, just beside the 

 bracket. I don't know whether the hornets left voluntarily or with the aid of the 

 sparrows. The birds entered the nest thru the triangular hole in the bracket and 

 had pulled out a part of the comb and replaced it with grass and feathers. As the 

 young sparrows grew I expected to see the bottom drop out of the nest, but it 

 didn't; it lasted for a second brood. 



Portland, Oregon. 



FROM riilLD AND STUDY 



The Vermilion Flycatchef at Santa Barbara. — On the 15th of March, 1907, on the 

 Modoc Road west of Santa Barbara, I came upon a Vermilion Flycatcher. It was catching insects 

 after its manner, perching between whiles upon the fence posts or the wire, and now and then 

 betaking itself for a little to the top of a neighboring oak. It seemed but yesterday, tho it was 

 four years ago, that I had seen my first bird of this kind (the first of many) doing the same thing, 

 with the same phoebe-like flirt of its tail, from a wire fence at Tucson, Arizona. Here, as there, 

 the bird was very "observable", and I stayed with it for fifteen minutes or more, admiring its 

 brilliant color, and in my enthusiasm pointing it out to a passing school boy, to whom I lent my 

 twelve-power field-glass for an observation. "Yes," he said, when I inquired if he had "got it"; 

 "yes, it is red and everything." 



This, I understand from the Editor of The Condor, is at least one of the northernmost- rec- 

 ords for the species in California. — Bradford Torrey, Newton Lozver Falls, Massachusetts. 



Where Does the- Western Boundary I/ine Run for the Ariajona Quail?— I re- 

 cently made a trip from Mecca, California, around the western shore of the so-called Salton vSea 

 to Calexico, on New River, and at that place we crossed to Lower California. We went thru the 

 pass at the north end of the Cocopah range, into and down the valley that lies between the 

 Cocopah and Coast Ranges for about 70 miles. We more than circled the former range without 

 once getting out of the living ground of iLo/>/^<9rA)/.r^a;«d^/z'. How much further west or south 

 they live I do not know, but would much like to. Having found them on the west side of the 

 Cocopahs I was not, of course, surprised to find them east of it. Kindly enlighten me thru The 

 Condor.— Herbert Brown, Tucson, Arizona. 



Notes from Clipperton and Coccos Islands.— In looking over "The Birds of Clipperton 

 and Cocos Islands," by Messrs. Snodgrass and Heller, on my return from the Galapagos in 1902, 

 I noticed the absence from their list of several species that were present on the islands when our 

 party called. We stopped at Clipperton Island November 19, 190 1, and went ashore for several 

 hours. I saw on Clipperton Island in addition to the birds seen by Messrs. Snodgrass and Heller: 

 Squatarola squatarola (Black-bellied Plover), two seen; Numenius hudsonicus (Hudsonian Cur- 



