13 Geo. 5 Provincial Museum Report. O 17 



this bird when he worked in the Department prior to my joining the service, I did not obtain 

 any more information concerning it for some time. 



However, on January 24th, 193?, Captain Oliver G. Harbell, an old personal friend of the 

 late John Fannin, happened to call at my office, and knowing that he knew Mr. Fannin for many 

 years, I asked him when they first became acquainted. Captain Harbell said that he arrived in 

 Victoria on October 13th, 1875, from St. John, N.B., and after being here a few days be went over 

 to Burrard Inlet and was living at Moodyville (opposite where the City of Vancouver is to-day), 

 and about this time he made the acquaintance of Mr. Fannin. After a few more questions I asked 

 him about the collection of birds Mr. Fannin had, and if he remembered what white birds were 

 in the collection. He informed me that the only white bird he could remember was a white 

 heron that had been killed by an Indian on the shores of Burrard Inlet in the latter part of 

 May, 1879. He secured this bird from the Indian, and knowing that Mr. Fannin was desirous 

 of obtaining all the specimens possible, he carried it over to Granville, on the southern side 

 of Burrard Inlet (now the City of Vancouver), to Mr. Fannin, who mounted it and added it to 

 his private collection. 



The following is a copy of a letter that Captain Oliver G. Harbell has written me under his 

 own signature, and I think this should settle, once and for all, any doubts concerning the 

 occurrence of the plumed egret (MesopJioyx intermedia) as an accidental visitant in British 

 Columbia, and not only is it an addition to the " List of British Columbia Birds," but also a 

 record of an addition to the " Birds of North America " : — 



"Victoria, B.C., January 24th, 1923. 

 " F. Kermode, Esq., 



Director, Provincial Museum, Victoria, B.C. 



" I, Oliver G. Harbell, of Victoria City, do hereby declare I am the person who secured the 

 specimen of white heron (Mesophoy.v intermedia) from ait Indian at Burrard Inlet in the latter 

 part of May, 1879'. At the time I was living at Moodyville. The bird was freshly killed and 

 I took it across the inlet to Granville and gave it to John Fannin, who skinned and mounted 

 the specimen for his own private collection. This was prior to his becoming Curator of the 

 Provincial Museum at Victoria, B.C. 



" The late Mr. John Fannin, after being appointed Curator of the Provincial Museum at 

 Victoria for the Provincial Government, moved all his private collection to Victoria, to form 

 the nucleus of the Museum. The specimen in the Museum to-day is the same one that I gave the 

 late John Fannin. 



"(Signed) Oliver G. Harbell." 



Notes on the Iceland Gull (Lartjs (leucopterus?)). 



In the Annual Report for the year 1920 note was made of the capture of two specimens of 

 the white-winged gull at Kildonan, on Barkley Sound, by William McKay. As some exceptions 

 have been taken to the classification of these gulls, Mr. P. A. Taverner while here in September, 

 1922, examined these two specimens and made sketches for comparison with the birds in the 

 Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa. Mr. Taverner wrote me from Ottawa on October 17th, 

 1922, as follows :— 



"Your specimens are practically identical with two specimens we have from the Arctic 

 Coast of Alaska that Dwight examined and pronounced leucopterus. However, he admits that 

 his only distinction between leucopterus and hyperboreus is size, and these birds just come within 

 the limits as laid down by hiin. He is assuming, therefore, that hyperboreus never gets smaller 

 than his determined minimum and that anything smaller must of necessity be leucopterus. To 

 admit anything else would make his position on the form L. h. barrovianus, on which he has 

 stated himself very strongly, untenable. 



"From my experience I do not think that ornithologists generally realize bow great the size 

 variation is in these large gulls. In the glaucous-winged especially the extremes arc compara- 

 tively enormous, and considerably more than would account for the linking of these small and 

 large hyperborcus. I see no reason for separating specifically these small white-winged gulls 

 from the larger hyperboreus. — P. A. Tayebneb." 



I sent these two birds to Mr. W. C. Henderson, Acting-Chief, Biological Survey, Washington, 

 D.C., asking that Dr. C. H. Oberholser be given them for determination, who returned them 

 labelled as barrovianus. 

 2 



