Mar., 1918 IN MEMORIAM: LYMAN BELDING 59 



"My love of adventure as well as my admiration of birds was responsible 

 for the most of my wanderings. Bird songs always had a great attraction for 

 me and I copied many songs that had regular intervals and could be expressed 

 by our musical system. I think our meadow lark is more prolific of such songs 

 than any of our species." 



Belding's chief interest and pleasure in ornithology undoubtedly centered 

 around live birds. It was the pursuit and observation of birds in their own 

 homes that appealed especially to him. In his way, he must have been ani- 

 mated by much the same zeal that fired Audubon. He found writing rather 

 tedious, and for the effort expended not so profitable to him as more congenial 

 out-of-door occupations. For this reason his published writings are not at all 

 commensurate with the actual amount of work that he accomplished. 



His first long paper, published in 1879 — "A Partial List of the Birds of 

 Central California" — was the outcome of a very active period of collecting and 

 observation begun in 1876. The collections were made at Stockton and Marys- 

 ville, in the valley; at Murphy's on the lower edge of the pine region of the 

 Sierras (upper edge of the Upper Sonoran zone) ; at Calaveras Big Trees (Tran- 

 sition Zone) ; at Summit Station on the Central Pacific Railroad, and at Soda 

 Springs, ten miles south (Canadian and Hudsonian Zones). In this paper 220 

 species are listed. In a footnote Mr. Ridgway states that collections received 

 from Mr. Belding up to that time amounted to about 180 species (not includ- 

 ing races) and 600 specimens. 



In 1883, three papers appeared as the result of his collecting trips along 

 the west coast of Lower California and in the Cape region ; and a short paper- 

 recorded the birds found at Guaymas, Mexico. In the two articles concerned 

 with the Cape avifauna, 187 species are recorded, all but 21 being represented 

 by specimens. 



The Big Tree Thrush, Turdus sequoiensis, was described in 1889, from 

 specimens taken at Big Trees. Later in the same year appeared an account of 

 "The Small Thrushes of California," published, like the first, in the Proceed- 

 ings of the California Academy of Sciences. 



Mr. Belding's best known and longest work, "The Land Birds of the Pa- 

 cific District", appeared in 1890 as one of the series of Occasional Papers of 

 the California Academy of Sciences. When the American Ornithologists' 

 Union was organized in 1883, Mr. Belding was appointed to superintend the 

 collection, of information concerning the migration and distribution of the birds 

 of the "Pacific District," which comprised California, Oregon, Washington, 

 and Nevada, an area of about 434,000 square miles. The "Land Birds" grew 

 out of this work. Although data from many observers are recorded, a very sub- 

 stantial portion of the book is contributed by Mr. Belding himself. His own 

 work covered principally central California, or "the part of the state between 

 the northern parts of Stanislaus and Tuolumne counties and the northern part 

 of Butte, southwestern Plumas and Sierra counties." 



"I have made observations," he says in the preface, "at many localities in 

 this part of the state, in the tule swamps, river bottoms, plains, foot-hills and 

 coniferous forests of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at all altitudes, kept a rec- 

 ord of the birds, but have not thought it necessary to burden my notes with a 

 long list of localities. # * * 



"I am quite confident that few if any species have escaped my notice in 

 Central California except a few which probably visit the high Sierra Nevada in 



