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VOL. VI 
in every case he had found the wounds neatly dressed with down plucked from 
the feathers, and arranged evidently by the long bill of the bird. In some in- 
stances a solid plaster was thus formed, and in others “bandges” had been applied 
to wounds or broken limbs. One bird shot had been severely wounded at some 
recent period, and had been protected by a sort of net work of feathers taken from 
the bird’s own body, .so arranged as to completely cover the wound. The feathers 
were fairly netted together, passing alternately under and above each other, form- 
ing about the broken limb a textile fabric of strong binding power. 
Might it not be more reasonable to conclude, in the case of the swallow, that 
the young bird had entangled itself with some horse hairs that were used in the 
nest and had broken its leg, while the Cleveland citizen happened too bserve the 
bird’s condition and regarded it as a piece of wonderful animal intelligence? A 
case similar to that of the wounded woodcock has come under my personal obser- 
vation. This bird was a female valley partridge {Lophorlyx californicus). As I 
was coming down a ridge one November day of 1901 this quail fluttered along al- 
most under the horse’s feet, and then escaped into the tall, dry w^eeds where I 
captured her. She had been in .some way hurt above and below the knee, from 
either a shot or a trap. The bird, on getting 
away into the thick brush naturally drew her 
wounded leg up under the flank feathers. The 
^ oozing blood would cause the .soft downy 
parts of the feathers to adhere and dry onto it. Then as the bird felt the 
need of food or was obliged to move, she would lower the leg to use it, 
when off would come a few feathers adhering to the wound. This would also 
cause some parts of the wound to bleed afresh, and more soft down with bits of 
fine dry grass and dirt would be added as the bird crouched down, forming a reg- 
ular cast or bandage. This seems to be the explanation of many cases of natural 
surgery, and was certainly what happened to the quail. 
I recall also the case of a. male Brewer blackbird ( E/(p/iay ?/s cya?/ocepfia///s) 
taken one winter. The leg had been broken midway above the knee and the ends 
of the bones had slipped by each other and healed, the muscles holding them in 
place. Another specimen had no toes on one leg, there being a stump. 
This brings me back to the bone picked upon the beach. A cut is here given 
showing the overlap, between the two dotted lines, where the healing has taken 
place. The bone had been broken in some manner, had turned half way around, 
slipped together about an inch, where by some means or other it had been kept 
until it had grown together. On the lower side the splintered bone may be seen in 
wedge-shaped form. The humerus is three inches long as healed and some four 
inches long in its natural condition. 
Haywards^ CaIifor 7 iia. 
A List of Summer Birds of the Piute Mountains, California 
liV c. II. RICHARDSON, JR. 
D uring the summer of 1903, I spent a month’s vacation in the Piute Mts. 
These mountains consist of a single range, lying between the Tehachapi 
Hills and the Sierra Nevada mountains. My headquarters was a small 
cabin about six miles northwest of the Piute post-office. The hills which surround 
