Sept., 1920 FROM FIELD AND STUDY 191 
black speck, which, accompanied by an inverted image of itself, we had reason to believe 
was approaching us across the glaring white surface of a dry lake, and would presently 
resolve itself into the truck which had promised to come for us and our outfit at 10 A. M. 
At almost exactly 11 o’clock the truck reached us and came to a standstill beside a 
nearby windmill and tank of magnesia water, where the driver stopped his engine to 
cool it off.’ The truck, alas, was not the one we had ordered. It belonged to a mining 
company and was on its way into the Bullion Mountains above us. 
Nevertheless, it had hardly come to a standstill, when a little bird appeared in 
the road beneath it, walking about gratefully in the small patch of shade afforded. Dr. 
Sumner spied the bird first. He seemed to think it odd or unusual, and asked me with 
interest what kind of a bird it might be. The fact that the bird was walking, and in a 
very teetery fashion, allowed me about two guesses, and I replied that the bird was 
either a Water-Thrush or an Ovenbird. The bird was tame, and I was soon able to see 
that the back was green and the crown old-gold. I asked Paul, the truck driver, to keep 
his eye on the bird while I rummaged through the packed outfit for my gun. Paul did 
as I asked him, and I am now able to prove to any who might otherwise have been 
skeptical that the bird was an Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus)—a male with testes 
5/16 of an inch in diameter. The study-skin now bears no. 40648, in the California Mu- 
seum of Vertebrate Zoology. 
This is the only proved case of an Ovenbird on the mainland of California, though 
two were observed on the Farallon Islands, May 29, 1911 (Dawson, Condor, x11, 1911, p. 
167), one of which was taken. 
I am not properly elated, I fear, at having been placed by chance under the neces- 
sity of taking the life of a lost Ovenbird on the inhospitable desert. In fact it seemed 
the irony of fate that of all birds I should have met this one, whom I have heard sing 
its ecstatic aerial song by moonlight over the pine forests of Massachusetts in June, and 
whom I have celebrated in a poem published in “Poetry: a Magazine of Verse.’—RICHARD 
Hunt, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, California, June 11, 1920. 
EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS 
To those interested in the protection and 
conservation of wild life upon our waters 
and whose attention has been called to the 
destruction of sea-bird life by the discharge 
of refuse oil from the ballast tanks of oil 
carriers into the water, the news will be 
gratifying that the only remaining company 
which persisted in this, the Union Oil Com- 
pany, has notified the California Academy of 
Sciences of the cessation of this practice. A 
letter has been recently received from this 
company stating that it had completed the 
installation of ballast tanks to take care of 
this waste oil instead of pumping it over- 
board as was the former custom, and that 
there would be no further cause for com- 
plaint. The Audubon Association of the 
Pacific, the Cooper Ornithological Club and 
the California Academy of Sciences have 
fought this indefensible custom so _ vigor- 
ously as to bring about this satisfactory re- 
sult. 
Cooper Club members will be interested 
in the communication from Mr. W. Leon 
Dawson, addressed to the Club, as entered 
in the minutes of the Northern Division (p. 
193), and in the Committee’s recommenda- 
tion concerning the subject matter thereof. 
In accordance with the Committee’s sugges- 
tion, an understanding has been reached 
with Mr. Dawson whereby, agreeable to all 
concerned, the Cooper Ornithological Club 
as an organization is no longer identified 
in any way with the “Birds of California” 
enterprise. We are assured by Mr. Dawson 
that prospects are favorable for the appear- 
ance of the first fascicle in January next, 
the plan now being to issue the work part 
by part. 
A contribution of a nature to be exceed- 
ingly useful in systematic ornithology has 
just appeared under the authorship of Rich- 
ard C. McGregor. This is his ‘Index to the 
Genera of Birds”, issued March 31, 1920, 
from the Bureau of Science, Manila (‘Publi- 
cation no. 14”, 8vo, 185 pp.). This list, of 
&839 names, is rendered in compact form by 
being printed in small yet comfortably dis- 
tinct type, three columns to the page, and 
with citations reduced to the barest essen- 
tials. By a special limitation of scope only 
five previous authors are cited, yet it seems 
practically certain that every genus name 
proposed up to 1917 is included. Enough 
information is given in connection with each 
name to enable the enquirer to find out all 
atout its history. The amount of work in- 
volved in an index of this sort must be enor- 
mous. For example, the author states that 
he gathered 25,000 original reference slips, 
