360 The American Naturalist. a 
seen at any time of the day, either singly or in pairs. Probably, 
although I have no authority for it, the larger waders and several 
species of the limicoline birds are also to be found upon the shores of 
Silver Lake during the vernal and autumnal migrations, | 
At various distances, and in nearly all directions from it, are to be 
found a number of other lakes more or less like the one we have been 
considering, though in most instances larger than it, as im the 
case of Abert’s Lake, found some forty-five miles to the southward and 
eastward. 
In the Oregon desert, about forty miles east of Silver Lake, lies 
Fossil Lake, so named from the rich deposit of fossil mammals, birds, 
fish, and so forth that have been found there. This lake has long 
since dried up, though water may yet be obtained by digging, and 
that at a depth of two feet or more, anywhere over its former bottom 
This latter is a perfect mine of wealth for the paleontologist, as it is 
absolutely filled with the fossil remains of many of the former inhab- 
. itants of, or animals that resorted to, what at one time must have beet 
a sheet of water considerably like Silver Lake. Unfortunately for 
science, when the cattle men first went into that country they gathered ; 
up as objects of curiosity the majority of the best fossils of this locality, 
and they have thus been forever lost to us. This will account, I think, 
for nearly the entire absence of bird skulls among that kind of material 
subsequently obtained there by naturalists. ee 
Professor Thomas Condon, of the University of Oregon, was the 
first scientific man that visited Fossil Lake, and he made a very CaF 
fully selected and highly valuable collection there; and some of the a 
fossil birds found by him are now in my hands for description. A few a 
years afterwards, Professor Cope despatched one of his assistants het & 
Chas. H. Sternberg, of Lawrence, Kansas, who made an enormous o 
collection on the same ground. Later, in the ’80’s, Professor co 
visited the region in person, and made another fine collection, includ- i 
ing many forms previously found by both Professor Condon p 
Sternberg. eee 
In the November number, 1889, of the AMERICAN NATURALIST, 
Professor Cope, in an article entitled “The Silver Lake of On 
and Its Regioni,” to which I am indebted for the information gl 
recited, presents us with some of the results of his eminently important 
researches in that country. : coe 
Setting aside the mammals and other vertebrates, it is my inte of 
to say only a few words here about the collection of fossil birds BE 
were obtained by the authorities mentioned. he 
After these latter were safely transferred east by their disti 
