1876.] Zodlogy. 3 177 
“ Falco pullarius, the chicken hawk,” “* Calandra pratensis, the May 
bird,” “* Passer agrestis, the little field sparrow,” etc., are to be regarded 
as descriptions, especially if the coincidence of favorable circumstances 
renders it possible to guess with tolerable certainty what birds were 
meant, I do not. Neither do I consent that names such as these, whose 
application is mainly determinable by a process of exclusion based on 
the subsequent accumulation of knowledge for three fourths of a century, 
shall be taken to supplant others which have become familiar through 
long use, and which were originally accompanied by carefully and intel- 
. 
ligently prepared descriptions, and in many cases also by admirable 
figures. 
If Dr. Coues had insisted on the recognition of only those Bartramian 
names really identifiable by Bartram’s descriptions, I should have ac- 
cepted them without a word of protest; but when he coupled with them 
three times as many more which can be determined only on some other 
basis, and then rarely with any degree of certainty, I deemed it an inno- 
vation not to be quietly endured. I am very glad to see that even Dr. 
Coues himself has abandoned this extreme ground in his reply to my 
critique. 
In conclusion I may say that I do not feel that Dr. Coues gave the 
reference to Bartram’s recognition of the variation in size in animals of 
same species from different localities quite the consideration it merits, 
for Bartram not only observed the facts, but correlated them into a gen- 
eral statement, and even raised the inquiry whether these differences be 
hot the result of conditions of environment, — whether “the different 
n forming and establishing the difference in size and other qualities be- 
J. A. ALLEN. 
PELICANS IN San Franoisco Bay. — Pelicans (P. fuscus) are un- 
usually numerous in San Francisco Bay this season, especially on the 
astern side, along the Oakland shore. Recently, during a dense fog, a 
white pelican (P, erythrorhyncus) measuring ten feet from tip to tip of 
wings flew into the arms of a man in San Francisco. — R. E. C. STEARNS. 
Bears AND PantHers on THE Pacrerc Coast.— Nine cinnamon 
TS were recently caught with steel traps on a ranch on the coast near 
i Corners, Sonoma County, California; and William Bonness, a 
Settler on the Little Chico, in Butte County, killed last month a family 
of California lions consisting of the parent pair and two cubs. Robert 
Ford also killed three in Oregon last month, and one was recently killed 
near Seattle, W, T., which measured nine feet four inches in length. 
eer are plentiful in San Bernardino County, and robins and larks 
~e unusually abundant in the orchards of Santa Cruz, California. — R. 
7 E. Ç, STEARNS. 
os i HE Sea-Lrons and other seals which frequent the rocky islets near 
: eaan to San Francisco Bay, at Point Lobos, have heretofore been 
“Ro, 8, 12 
