32 } THE CONDOR Vol. XXIV 
Possibly owls usually bathe at night when no one would be likely to see them, 
which may account for our lack of knowledge on this point.—JosrEpH MAILLIARD, Califor- 
nia Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, December 5, 1921. 
The California Brown Pelican in the State of Washington.—The status of the 
California Brown Pelican (Pelecanus californicus) in the state of Washington seems, 
hitherto, to be founded altogether upon sight records and one or two mounted specimens 
that are supposed to have been collected in the state. The sight records were made by 
Suckley and other old time observers, while the mounted birds are even more uncertain, 
if possible, for proper scientific work. 
It is with pleasure, therefore, that I am able to place on record a fine example of 
this bird that was turned over to me in the flesh a few days ago. It was collected on 
October 30, 1921, by Mr. Roger Evans, of Kapowsin, Washington. The locality was 
Lake Kapowsin, which is situated among the eastern foothills of the Cascade Moun- 
tains, and about one hundred and twenty miles from the Pacific Ocean. It was alone 
and no more were seen; neither have I had any other reported from elsewhere. The 
appearance of the bird so far from salt water may be accounted for by the fact that an 
unusually severe storm of several days duration took place just prior to its capture. Mr. 
Evans very kindly turned the bird over to us for the use of science, and it is now in the 
collection of Mr. D. E. Brown, in Seattle, Washington. It is an immature male, and 
presumably a bird of the present year.—J. Hooper BowLes, Tacoma, Washington, No- 
vember 7, 1921. 
The “Anthony Vireo’ Not a Tenable Subspecies.— Vireo huttoni obscurus Anthony 
has held its place as a valid subspecies in both the second (1895) and the third (1910) 
editions of the A. O. U. Check-List. Also Ridgway recognized it in Part III (1904) of 
his Birds of North and Middle America. 
In April, 1921, I had the chance of examining the type skin of this supposed race 
in the ornithological collection of the Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh. This type, ap- 
parently not hitherto recorded, is now no. 16981, Carnegie Mus.; female; Beaverton. 
Oregon; March 20, 1890; orig. no. 2671, A. W. Anthony. I compared it with the other 
material in the Carnegie collection, and came to the conclusion that the name obscurus 
does not apply to a tenable race. 
It happens that this same conclusion had been come to by Rhoads years ago (see 
Auk, x, July, 18938, pp. 238-241). And it seems, according to Rhoads, that Anthony him- 
self had come to doubt the validity of obscurus. It is curious that these circumstances 
did not seem to weigh against the acceptance of the name in the 1895 A. O. U. Check-List. 
Anthony, in his original description of obscurus (Zoe, 1, December, 1890, pp. 307- 
308), was, I think, misled by the seasonal conditions of coloration. The “rich suffusion 
of olive and yellowish tints” emphasized as the main character of obscurus is common 
to birds in fresh, or at least unfaded, plumage from throughout the range of Vireo hut- 
toni huttoni. Those vivid tints are fugitive, and they go fastest and most completely in 
sunny aS compared with cloudy climates; there is geographic variation in rate of fading 
(see Grinnell, Auk, xrx, April, 1902, pp. 128-131). Southern California birds lose the 
“blush” of the new plumage sooner and more completely than birds of western Oregon. 
But as far as I can now see, from a repeated examination of the extensive material in the 
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, the intrinsic color tone is very nearly the same all the 
way from Washington (a bird at hand from Tacoma) to San Diego County, California. 1 
was misled in precisely the same way Anthony was, when I described the supposed form 
mailliardorum from Santa Cruz Island (see Condor, v, November, 1903, p. 157), and evi- 
dently Bishop was Similarly confused when he named oberholseri (Condor, vir, Septem- 
ber, 1905, pp. 142-143) from San Diego County! 
Now, Rhoads (loco citato) did not stop with showing that obscurus was untena- 
ble; he described a new race of his own, insularis, from the southern end of Vancouver 
Island. He had but three specimens, two of which he made the “types”. These, as com- 
pared with huttoni, he describes as showing “over the whole plumage” a “sooty suffi- 
Sion’. I am tempted to suggest that these may have been town-smoked birds. Hutton 
Sland are notably rare in collections. In the Museum of Verte- 
Both are dark as compared with 
Vireos from Vancouver I 
brate Zoology there are but two, both from Victoria. 
