52 
THE CONDOR 1 VoL. V 
Clivicola riparia. Bank Swallow. All three of the abov^e swallows found 
breeding near lake. 
Geothlypis trichas occidentalis. Western Yellowthroat. They are quite 
common in the tules. 
Oroscoptes montanus. Sage Thrasher. Found quite commonly in sage brush 
on east side. 
Cistothorus palustris plesius. Western Marsh Wren. A very busy little 
wren in the tules. 
Status of the Bicolored Blackbird in Southern California. 
BY FRANK S. DAGGKTT. 
I T is safe to say that during the past ten years hundreds of eggs of the bi-colored 
blackbird {Agelaius gi(bernator) have been sent from Southern California, and 
all our collections contained skins of what was supposed to represent that bird. 
When the interest in ornithology was first started in California and which 
culminated in the formation of the Cooper Ornithological Club in 1893, the princi- 
pal authorities warranted the assumption that gubernator occurred in Southern 
California. Coues’ Key gave the distribution as “Pacific Coast U. S. and British 
Columbia” while the A. O. U. Check-List states, “Pacific Coast district from West- 
ern Washington, south to Lower California,” etc. With this for a basis we all 
looked iox guberjiator, and it was found, as we supposed, associated with Agelaius 
phceniceus of those days. The bird so selected was an immature-looking male, 
with buff lesser wing coverts, and black middle coverts, answering to the written 
descriptions of There is more or less uncertainty as to the status of 
all our blackbirds, and in 1896 Mr. Grinnell made up a lot of adults and imma- 
tures, for transmission to Washington for identification, among them some belong- 
ing to the writer. Upon their return we found, among the immatures, several 
gubernator . This was long before Mr. Ridgway’s revision of the black- 
birds, but it confirmed our earlier decision and gubernator received a place in the 
T.ist of Birds of the Pacific Slope of Los Angeles County with the following observa- 
tion by Mr. Grinnell: “Several specimens of this form have been taken at Bixby 
and El Monte, and it may breed in this County, as it does commonly to the north- 
ward; but I have no reliable data, altho many eggs purporting to be of this bird 
have been sent from the County.” 
About a year ago Mr. Grinnell, in order to settle the question, sent me a pair 
of gubernator , in breeding plumage, collected by him in a locality of well known 
occurrence. The comparison at once threw out the birds which we had known as 
gubernator, and further investigation convinces me that they are what is now 
known as A. p. 7 ieutralis Ridgway. 
I have examined all the available collections in Southern California, with the 
same results, and I can find no one here who can produce actual specimens of 
gubernator taken in the southern counties of California. 
Unless some one produces specimens, it is safe to say that the bird does not 
occur here. Certainly the eggs sent out so freely from this part of the state, in 
years gone by, xss gubernator, can safely be put down as of Mr. Ridgway’s recent- 
ly described A. p. neutralis, for most of them were taken in well known colonies, 
where none but neutralis are found today. 
