July, 1919 
ander Wetmore is reported to have dropped 
into camp for the first week of June. That 
is an unusual concentration of keen ornith- 
ologists, so let us watch now for new rec- 
ords from Arizona! 
Mr. and Mrs. A. Brazier Howell and daugh- 
ter are touring northern California and Ore- 
gon this summer, visiting the type localities 
of certain desirable birds and mammals. An 
ingeniously and compactly equipped ‘‘Buick” 
contributes wonderfully to bringing the de- 
sired results. 
Halsted G. White and Richard M. Hunt 
are spending the summer in field work in 
the Santa Lucia Mountains of southern Mon- 
terey County, California—this in the inter- 
ests of the California Museum of Vertebrate 
Zoology. 
Mr. Laurence Huey is doing field work 
with the birds of the northern Sierra Neva- 
da in the interests of Mr. Donald R. Dickey 
of Pasadena. Photographs of nesting birds 
constitute an important portion of the out- 
put. 
Mr. F. C. Lincoln, Curator of the depart- 
ment of ornithology of the Colorado Museum 
of Natural History, is now mustered out of 
the army, in which he served in the pigeon 
section of the Signal Corps. He has lately 
given a number of lectures in Denver on 
“The Military Use of the Homing Pigeon’ 
and has in preparation an article on the 
same subject, to appear in due time in some 
natural history journal. 
Addition to Military Service Record: Par- 
MENTER, Henry H., Commander, U. S. Navy, 
Retired, Twelfth Naval District, San Fran- 
cisco, California. Assistant Commandant of 
District since May, 1917. 
Leo Wiley, a member of the Cooper Or- 
nithological Club since 1915, died at Shan- 
don, California, October 31, 1918, a victim 
of the influenza epidemic. He was born at 
Silverton, Colorado, September 20, 1890, and 
was the only son of A. P. Wiley, who now 
resides at Palo Verde, Imperial County, Cal- 
ifornia. It was at this place, in 1910, that 
Leo Wiley got in touch with some visiting 
ornithologists, and thereafter his interest in 
birds led to a number of brief but valuable 
contributions to the columns of THE Con- 
poR. Many specimens taken by him have 
come into the possession of the Museum of 
Vertebrate Zoology; and now, through gift 
from his father, the balance of his collection 
of birds has gone to the same institution. 
| As bearing further upon the problem of 
ducks versus rice in the Sacramento Valley, 
California (see page 89 of our March issue), 
it is proper to state that the United States 
EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS 175 
Department of Agriculture will now, upon 
application, issue a blanket permit allowing 
growers, members of their immediate fami- 
lies, and bona fide employees to “herd” 
ducks from the rice fields between Septem- 
ber 15 and October 15 and to utilize for food 
any birds killed in the process. Such birds 
may also be shipped to charitable institu- 
tions if properly marked, After the season 
opened last fall permits were granted to rice 
growers to herd at night so as to allow pro- 
tection of the harvested rice during moon- 
light nights. As might have been expected, 
the demand for an earlier opening of the 
season and promiscuous hunting came from 
hunters in the towns, and not from the rice 
growers themselves, who in reality oppose 
open shooting. Retrieving ducks in growing 
rice would cause greater damage than the 
ducks cause. It is obvious that here, as 
with so many other economic problems aris- 
ing in the course of adjustment of natural 
conditions to human settlement, the first 
need is for the careful ascertainment of the 
facts. There often prove to be no valid 
grounds for conflict of interests; when there 
are real grounds, then some fair solution is 
likely to present itself to the persons who 
study the situation disinterestedly. The 
coming harvest season should find all inter- 
ests well cared for, thanks to the attention 
given the matter by our Government 
through the Bureau of Biological Survey, 
Department of Agriculture. 
The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the 
University of California has again under- 
taken field work in Alaska, and a party to 
work in that region left the Museum on May 
14, to be gone until October 1. The route 
for the present season lies in southeastern 
Alaska in the vicinity of Wrangell. It fol- 
lows up the Stikine River from the sea east- 
wardly into the interior to the vicinity ot 
Telegraph Creek, British Columbia. The 
purpose of the work is to gather specimens 
and all sorts of natural history information 
concerning the birds and mammals of the 
section traversed, particularly in order to 
fearn how the fauna of the relatively arid 
interior differs from that of the humid coast 
belt; also as to what happens where the two 
faunas meet. Several seasons of work in 
the same general region have brought to- 
gether large collections from adjacent sec- 
tions and these have already been reported 
upon in a series of papers published from 
the University of California Press; so that 
the new niaterial will be gathered and inter- 
preted upon a more advantageous basis than 
would otherwise be possible. The present 
year’s field work is in charge of Mr. Harry 
S. Swarth, Curator of Birds in the Museum, 
and he will be assisted by Mr. Joseph Dixon, 
Economic Mammalogist, as also by local 
hunters. This opportunity of the Museum 
of Vertebrate Zoology to resume its field 
