. 
992 The American Naturalist. [November, 
interesting both because its breeding range was previously unknown, 
and because no species of the genus had been recorded from the Sierra 
Nevada south of about latitude 40°, while the present species was com- 
mon nearly to the 36th parallel. 
“ Most satisfactory results were accomplished in working out the 
distribution of Thurber’s junco (Junco hyemalis thurberi) a recently 
described race whose range was not definitely known. In the Sierra 
Nevada it was common from the Yosemite Valley, the most northern 
point visited by any member of the expedition, to the southern end of 
the range, and in the desert ranges eastward to the Grapevine and 
Charleston Mountains, where its place was occupied, in winter, at 
least, by its more eastern representative, Shufeldt’s junco. The little 
black-chinned sparrow (Spizella atrigularis) was found to be not an 
uncommon summer resident on the slopes of several of the desert 
ranges and also on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada as far north as 
Independence Creek in Kearsarge Pass. This was a great surprise, as 
heretofore the species has been recorded within our limits only along 
the southern border, and its presence was not suspected, until a speci- 
men was taken in the Panamint Mountains in April. 
* Le Conte’s thrasher (Harporhynchus lecontei) contrary to our 
expectations, was a common resident throughout the principal desert 
valleys from Owens Valley at the east foot of the Sierra Nevada across 
southern California and Nevada to southwestern Utah, where it was 
found nearly to the summit of the Beaverdam Mountains." Its range 
was found to correspond nearly with that of the curious bush Larrea 
mexicana in our limits. 
An interesting result is the discovery that the California condor 
(Cathartes californianus) is not so rare nor so near to extinction as has 
been supposed. A considerable number of individuals were seen b 
members of the expedition, mostly on the eastern side of the southern 
Sierra Nevada. Now that bisulphide of carbon is taking the place of 
strychnia for the destruction of mammalian pests of agriculture, it is 
to be hoped that the slaughter of this magnificent bird will be stopped, 
and that it will continue to add dignity to the noble scenery in which 
it dwells, as long as the country itself continues. 
The determinations and descriptions of the Reptilia and Batrachia 
of this report are the work of Dr. Stejneger of the U. S. National 
Museum, and they are accompanied by field notes by Dr. C. H. Merriam. 
In the work of Dr. Stejneger, we see the ornithologist in herpetology. 
The critical quality of the work both as to the structural characters, 
and the literature, is beyond all praise; but species splitting is carried 
x 
