174 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
about such robes, but without gaining any information. Dr. W. T. Hornaday 
told me he had heard of them, but had never seen one. 
My cousin. Miss Bates, was in the Canadian Rockies in 1906, and the guide 
who took her on some of her trips showed her a> photograph of his family, and 
called attention to a skin on which the group were seated, saying that it was a 
silk buffalo, killed on the Canadian prairies. The guide’s father was an early 
settler in that region, and got the skin when he first came out. The guide spoke 
of its rarity and value, and was much surprised and interested to learn that 
my cousin knew about them and owned one. Both he and my uncle said that 
in a large herd occasionally one of these fine silk animals was found, but never 
more than one. 
Mr. David N. Heizer of Colorado Springs informs me that in Kansas, after 
the civil war, the young buffalo bulls in November were said to be in the silk. 
Can any of my readers give me any information about these skins? I am 
naturally somewhat curious to learn if there is really any truth as to the rarity 
and value of these fine-haired skins. — Edward R. Warren, Colorado Springs, Colo. 
THE CALIFORNIA GRAY WHALE ON THE COAST OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 
Recent writers on our Cetacea have stated that the California gray whale 
{Rhachianectes glaucus) is extinct on our coast and is, at this time, found only in 
small numbers along the coast of Japan. Some have gone so far as to state that 
it is twenty years since the last of the California grays appeared on the American 
coast. As I had considered this Species one of our most common whales, when 
I left this part of the coast twenty-three years ago, I found it hard to reconcile 
these records with my own observations. 
A trip to the Coronado Islands, twenty miles south of the harbor of San Diego, 
March 5, 1921, gave me the first, and, to date, the only chance of observing whales; 
and I was gratified to see two fine male California gray whales under conditions 
that rendered identification beyond question. These were the only whales of any 
species seen on the trip. They were northward bound and evidently migrating. 
When I first came to the coast of southern California, in 1887, there were still 
to be found many of the old time whalers who had, from the earliest history of 
the whale fishery, followed the ‘‘shore whaling,” hunting the “fish” from shore 
stations with hand-irons. These men knew the several species of our Pacific 
whales as they will never again be known. The present generation know little 
of our whales, and care less; and it is hard to obtain, at this tjime, any reliable 
data. — A. W. Anthony, San Diego, Calif. 
A HANDY collecting CASE 
The case for drying and carrying specimens of birds and small mammals, 
shown in the accompanying drawing, is the handiest and most useful case for 
certain field work that I have ever seen. Upon my showing it to Dr. Walter P. 
Taylor, of the U. S. Biological Survey, during a recent visit of his to the Cali- 
fornia Academy of Sciences, and my explaining to him its main features, he asked 
me to send a description of it to the Journal of Mammalogy so that others might 
benefit by it. 
