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Jan., 1920 FROM FIELD AND STUDY 
can Merganser, and still more uncommon winter residents sometimes came to these 
springs, and because of the interesting possibilities, I visited them regularly. The Can- 
ada Geese wintered in good numbers on the prairies in company with the Mallards, but 
never came to the spring-holes, and it was generally believed that during the zero 
weather they obtained water only by eating the snow. At different times I have crawled 
close to small spring-holes near the tightly frozen creeks and found the open water actu- 
ally covered with Mallard drakes in perfect plumage, the brilliant green heads in mass 
beautiful against the background of snow. I have noted fifty or more males thus packed 
in a single small spring, with not one female in the immediate vicinity—N. HoLLisrer, 
National Zoological Park, Washington, D. CU., November 5, 1919. 
Empidonax griseus in Oregon.—The first known occurrence of Empidonas griseus 
in Oregon was recorded by Mr. Stanley G. Jewett (Connor, xv, 1913, p. 229), and was 
based on a specimen taken on June 25, 1908, at Wright’s Point, 15 miles south of Burns. 
Since then several other records have appeared in print, but our knowledge of the dis- 
tribution of this species in the State is still so meager that additional data are worth 
publication. Three unrecorded specimens are at present in the collection of the Biolog- 
ical Survey, as follows: No. 140165, U. S. Nat. Mus., adult male, Burns, Oregon, July 6, 
1896, collected by Vernon Bailey; no. 141959, U. S. Nat. Mus., adult female, Narrows, 
Oregon, July 25, 1896, collected by H. A. Preble; and no. 140164, U. S. Nat. Mus., adult 
male, Elgin, Oregon, May 27, 1896, collected by Vernon Bailey. It will be noticed that 
all three of these specimens were obtained twelve years before the one that was first 
reported from the State by Mr. Jewett, although they have remained unmentioned until 
now.—-HARRY C. OBERHOLSER, Washington, D. C., October 1, 1919. 
The Anna Hummingbird as a Fly-catcher.—Mr. Tracy I. Storer (CoNDoR, XXI, no. 
3, p. 125) and Mr. Joseph Mailliard (Conpor, xxI, no. 5, p. 212) have given a list of 
birds other than Tyrannidae which follow the flycatcher habit of catching insects on 
the wing. I have one more to add to this list. A letter written by me in January, 1919, 
to a friend reads: “I witnessed another deviation from the general habits of this bird 
[refers to the- Anna Hummingbird (Calypte anna)] last summer. August 23 [1918] 
near five o’clock in the evening my attention was attracted by one perched on a wire 
in the back yard. I saw the bird dart into the air a short distance and return to the 
wire. Another moment and the act was repeated and this time just preceding the flight 
I noticed a movement of the head as if the bird were watching something passing over. 
I then suspected that the bird was catching insects and soon after I saw it snap a small 
white moth from the air. It continued feeding in this manner each evening for about 
an hour, until I left the city on October 20; and when I returned November 6, I found 
it had disappeared.” 
Last summer (1919) after an absence of about six weeks, I returned home Sep- 
tember 4 to find the same wire occupied in the evenings by one, two, and at times 
three of this species, all darting into the air for insects. They continued feeding in this 
manner until about November 1, ana at the present writing (November 20) they are 
still flying about this locality, but are visiting blossoms for food. Also last September 
(1919) I witnessed precisely the same performance described by Mr. Mailliard at the 
Bohemian Grove. I was resting in Union Square, San Francisco, when an Anna Hum- 
mingbird swooped over the palm tops, poised in the air about ten feet from the ground 
for a few seconds, and darted into a swarm of gnats, snapped up several of them and 
shot like a rocket over the St. Francis Hotel—Frank N. Bassett, Alameda, California, 
November 22, 1919. 
Colorado Notes.—My own opinion as regarding the winter members of a species 
coincides with that of Professor Henderson, namely, that they are merely the northern 
representatives moved in temporarily. As evidence of this, the Red-wings (some scat- 
tered birds) even as far out as Hudson, on the prairie, leave some time the last of Feb- 
ruary and the first of March. After this time there is a marked scarcity of Red-wings 
until the regular influxes of spring begin. Especially was this pronounced in the 
springs of 1916-17-18. During the same seasons this was also true of the Cowbird and 
