General Notes. 
96 
Californian Prairie Chickens. — It is always safest for naturalists 
to salt down newspaper extracts on scientific subjects, and usually best to 
leave them permanently in pickle, as the proverbial “ grain of salt ” is 
rarely sufficient to correct their bad savor. The severe attempts to cater 
to the marvelling tastes of their readers lead editors of newspapers to cor- 
rupt the foundation of facts on which stories sometimes rest, until we 
scarcely know whether they have any real foundation. Thus, as quoted in 
the “ Naturalist,” for February, p. 124, the “ Salinas Index” of California 
tries to make out that the Prairie Chicken has followed the Central Pacific 
Railroad-track from Nebraska west to Winnemucca, and from there strik- 
ing “ off the track,” reached Surprise and Shasta valleys, California. I can 
scarcely believe that Dr. Coues or any well-posted ornithologist should let 
such a blunder go uncorrected, but as it is, it needs only a few references 
to set it right. 
In Yol. VI of Pacific R. R. Reports, p. 94, Dr. Newberry, in 1857, wrote 
that he found Tetrao phasianellus from Canoe Creek, fifty miles north- 
east of Fort Reading, Cal., more and more abundant toward the northeast 
into Oregon. It was, indeed, from its abundance in the Upper Columbia 
River country, that Ord, as long ago as 1815, named it T. columbianus, 
now retained as the name of this variety as compared with the true T. 
phasianellus of British America, both being chiefly Western birds, though 
extending east to Wisconsin, perhaps to Illinois, where they are con- 
founded with the more eastern Prairie Chicken. 
All this was clearly set forth in the latest work on Californian Ornithol- 
ogy, published in 1870, and even the southern limit near lat 39° in Ne- 
vada indicated.* 
If the species had any tendency to spread in California with the in- 
crease of agriculture, it has now had more than twenty years to do so, but 
from the account quoted does not seem to have made much if any prog- 
ress. Attempts to naturalize it just north of San Francisco Bay have been 
made, but though it may succeed there, the climate of most other parts of 
California does not appear well suited to it. — J. G. Cooper, M. D., Hay- 
wood, Cal. 
Report of the Second Capture of the Orange-crowned War- 
bler ( Helminthophaga celata ) in New Hampshire. — Mr. Edward G. 
Gardiner, of Boston, informs me that a specimen of this rare Warbler was 
taken at the Isles of Shoals, September 9, 1877, by two young collectors, 
Messrs. Outram and Edward A. Bangs. The bird was a female, and was 
in company with a small flock, supposed to be of the same species, though 
no more were captured. Three specimens of this bird have been recorded 
* Ridgway, in Bull. Essex Inst. 1874, gives only “Upper Humboldt Valley,” 
near lat. 41°, but it was found near Salt Lake City, by Nelson, in 1872. 
