Nov., 1920 FROM FIELD AND STUDY 207 
While the birds were shy when I moved about openly, they were quite otherwise 
when I stood or sat quietly beside a clump of willow or an oak-scrub that grew in the 
locality. From these screens I watched the birds by the hour, at all distances from 
thirty yards to four feet or iess. Dozens of times individuals appeared from nowhere, 
apparently, and disappeared in like manner, their flight so bullet-like that the eye could 
hardly follow them. Numerous times I watched females preening on a twig less than 
six feet distant, but did not see a male thus engaged. 
Ordinarily the Black-chins, of which a few haunted the same locality, would drive 
the Calliopes unmercifully. Once, however, a male Calliope shot close beside me up the 
hillside, just grazing the grass-tips, driving at a Black-chin that was quietly feeding. 
Within two feet of the latter he mounted vertically about thirty feet, then dropped like 
a plummet on the feeding bird, and both flashed down the hill-side with Calliope doing 
the chasing. 
The courting antics of the species likewise received close attention. On one 
occasion an angry buzzing, almost terrifying in volume, resolved itself into a pair of 
these birds holding to each other’s beaks and revolving like a horizontal pinwheel, less 
than four feet from my eyes. Around they went, a half-dozen times, then parted, the 
female perching and preening on a twig of the oak-scrub just beyond arm’s reach, with 
the male two feet farther away and giving vent at three-second intervals to an explosive, 
metallic tzing. This was, of course, made with the wings, but the bird was sufficiently 
screened so that I could not see it clearly. 
On another occasion a female sat preening on a horizontal dead weed, when a 
male shot up the hill-side close to the ground, passed the female, mounted about twenty- 
five feet and darted down again in a long, narrow, vertical ellipse that flattened where 
it touched the hill-side. As he passed the female she fluttered and swung head downward 
on her perch. The male alighted above her, with vibrating wings, and coition took place 
in this position. 
Of seven females taken, one secured on June 19 held a half-developed ovum: two 
others, taken on this date and two days later, showed slightly developed ova, and the 
others were still farther from the laying stage. Other females were observed on June 
23 and 24 gathering spider-webs about the cabins.—L. E. Wyman, Museum of History, 
Science and Art, Los Angeles, October 2, 1920. 
EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS 
Honorary membership in the Cooper Or- 
nithological Club has, by action of both Di- 
visions, been conferred upon Florence Mer- 
riam Bailey (Mrs. Vernon Bailey). 
recognition is based upon Mrs. Bailey’s rec- 
ord as an accurate observer of living birds, 
and upon her marked literary ability in put- 
ting into permanent and pleasing form much 
of high value relative to the life histories of 
the birds of the western United States. She 
became an Active member of the Club in 
1910 and a Life member in 1919. She has 
always been a loyal supporter of the pur- 
poses of the Club, for instance as evidenced 
by the numerous articles contributed by her 
to THE CONDOR. 
The present Honorary membership roll of 
the Cooper Club contains seven names: Rob- 
ert Ridgway, elected in 1905; Henry W. Hen- 
shaw, 1909; C. Hart Merriam, 1909; J. A. 
Allen, 1910; Frank Stephens, 1912; Edward 
W. Nelson, 1917; and Florence Merriam 
Bailey, 1920. Hach of these ornithologists 
has been identified importantly with the 
development of the ornithology of western 
North America. 
This: 
The W. Otto Emerson collection of bird 
skins, numbering about 5500, has been pur- 
chased for the California Academy of Sci- 
ences by two public-spirited members of that 
body, Messrs. John W. Mailliard and W. H. 
Crocker. This collection consists largely of 
birds gathered by Mr. Emerson himself dur- 
ing the past forty years in Alameda County, 
California. Its local value is therefore great, 
and it is gratifying that its permanent pre- 
servation is now assured in a place to which 
bird students in the San Francisco Bay re- 
gion can have easy access. A number of 
rarities are included, such as “record speci- 
mens” of species which have been obtained 
but once or twice on the Pacific Coast or in 
California. There also goes into the pos- 
session of the Academy of Sciences the ori- 
ginal manuscript of Cooper’s Ornithology of 
California (1870), and that of Cooper's 
Birds of Washington Territory (1860). These 
had been salvaged from the effects of Dr. 
Cooper by Mr. Emerson many years ago, 
shortly after the former’s death. 
The large reading public reached by the 
“International Feature Service” through the 
