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FROM FIELD AND STUDY 
Fly-catching Birds.—While there is but little in my note books relating to fly- 
catching activities of birds other than the true flycatchers, the paragraph on this subject 
by Tracy I. Storer, in the “Field and Study” columns of a late Conpor (vol. xxI, no. 3, 
May-June, 1915, p. 125), induces me to offer some examples which interested me greatly | 
at the time of their occurrence. One of these happened while I was sojourning, in the | 
role of a convalescent, at Arrowhead Hot Springs, San Bernardino County, California, in 
May, 1916. On several mornings, as I was sitting in the large lounging hall of the hotel 
there and trying to pass away the idle hours by gazing at the landscape, my attention 
was attracted by the peculiar actions of a San Diego Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia 
coopert) which would frequently fly up from a near-by hedge and apparently endeavor to 
enter a room at the end of the veranda by means of a closed window, in spite of the glass. 
This became such a regular occurrence that one warm morning I moved outside with my 
field glass to watch the game, thinking that it must be a very stupid bird not to have 
learned by repeated failures that the glass was beyond its powers of penetration. Much 
to my surprise the bird proved to be feasting upon house flies that nightly congregated 
upon the window pane, made warmer than the surrounding walls by the artificial heat 
of the room, and which were rendered sluggish by the chill of the early morning temper- 
ature. 
The bird would fly up from the railing of the veranda, pick a fly or two off the 
glass, and return to its look-out perch to locate more, disappearing now and then proba- 
bly to a not far distant nest as carrying capacity became strained, but returning for fur- 
ther supplies until the increasing warmth of the morning revivified the flies sufficiently 
so that they could go about their regular business of the day. 
Another especially interesting case took place toward the end of June (1919) in 
the Bohemian Grove, near Monte Rio, Sonoma County, California. One day, as I was sit- 
ting at my typewriter in my camp, the sound of humming wings made me look up, as 
such a sound is not often heard inside the grove, and a female Allen Hummingbird 
(Selasphorus alleni) was seen but a few yards away, hovering about ten feet above the 
ground. Dancing in a broad beam of sunlight glancing through the trees just beyond her 
was a rather scattering swarm of medium sized flies of some sort, a little smaller than 
a house fly. Suddenly the hummingbird shot into their midst and picked out eight flies 
in rapid succession, poising in the center of the swarm and making a short dart at each 
victim. These flies seemed to be rather large sized prey for so small billed a bird and 
eight of them apparently sufficed, for the bird flew away and did not return. 
_ _.. The Nuttall Sparrow (Zenotrichia leucophrys nuttalli) sometimes indulges in the 
pastime of catching some sort of insects in such a manner as possibly to come under the 
head of fly-catching. I have seen this bird take insects by jumping into the air after 
them, with a sort of fluttering wing motion to assist them, although never quite flying 
after the victims. Most, if not all, of the other varieties that I have noted indulging in 
this exciting pastime have been enumerated in Storer’s list.—JosrEpH MAILLIARD, San 
Francisco, July 14, 1919. 
A California Specimen of the Sandhill Crane.—The Sandhill Crane (Grus mezi- 
cana) is of sufficiently rare occurrence in California at the present time to make it 
seem worth while to place on record the capture of a specimen from any part of the state. 
The close resemblance between the Sandhill and the Little Brown cranes renders it dif- 
ficult to judge from sight records alone as to the relative numbers of the two species, but 
there is good reason to believe that while the Little Brown is still fairly numerous asa 
winter visitant to some sections of California, the Sandhill occurs in very small numbers — 
al any season. Thus, for example, the extensive collecting of water birds-carried on by 
R. H. Beck, for the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in the vicinity of Los Bafios, Merced 
County, during the winter of 1911-12, produced several specimens of the Little Brov 
Crane, but none of the Sandhill. Mr. Beck had opportunities of examining the bags 
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