70 
THE CONDOR 
1 Vol. Ill 
Midwinter Birds at Barstow. 
By Joseph (iRiNNPH.L. 
HE SIXTH of January, igoi, I spent at Barstow, a Santa Fe' Railroad Station 
on the Mojave Desert of southeastern California. The country in this vicin- 
ity is hilly and particularly barren of vegetation. All the birds observed were 
along the Mojave River, at this date merely a creek, which one could clear at a 
jump. Along this stream are stretches of alkali grass flats, with here and there 
thin willow patches and .scattered cottonwoods. The day was verj- windy, and 
consequently rather unfavorable for collecting. Perhaps 175 birds were seen al- 
together during the six hours of active observation. These consisted of the fol- 
lowing thirteen species. 
1. Accipiter velox. Sharp-.shinned Hawk. 
One individual seen among the cottonwoods. 
2. Colaptes cafer collaris. Red-shafted Flicker. 
One individual, 
3. Sayornis saya. Say Plnebe. 
One individual flying along the River. 
4. Sturnella magna neglecta. Western Meadowlark. 
A single silent individual flushed from a gra.ssy meadow bj^ the River. 
5. Carpodacus mexicanus obscurus. House Finch. 
The House Finches were the most abundant of the birds at Barstow. They 
kept for the most part close about the buildings in the manner of English Spar- 
rows. But a few were to be found in the reed patches of the River bottom. Both 
these and the Gambel Sparrows had probably been in this vicinity constantly for 
man}" weeks, for they were much blackened with coal smoke. Their general ap- 
pearance from a distance was thus so different from the ordinary that I at first 
shot several when partly obscured among the brush, thinking them some un- 
familiar species. The specimens secured are uniformly and evenly blackened 
over the whole plumage, the resulting coloration being quite odd. In a male 
House Finch the parts of the plumage normally red are a deep burnt carmine 
color. In an adult Gambel Sparrow, the anterior parts have a dark plumbeous 
caste. This sootiness of plumage has been previously observed in several species 
taken about smokey railroad towns. (Cf. McGregor, Condor II, Jan. 1900, p. 18). 
I am tempted to believe that the Parus gambeli thayeri (Birtwell, Auk XVIII, 
April 1901, p. 166), described from Albuquerque, is ba.sed on just such adventitious 
characters. 
6. Zonotrichia leucophrys gambeli. Gambel Sparrow. 
Fairly common in the brush of the River bottom. 
7. Anthus pensilvanicus. American Pipit. 
One individual at margin of the stream. 
8. Thryomanes bewicki drymoecus. [Vigors Wren]. 
The single specimen secured appears to be quite like birds from the San Joa- 
quin-Sacramento Valley, and was evidently a winter .straggler to this locality. 
9. Sitta carolinensis aculeata. Slender-billed Nuthatch. 
I was heedlessly striding along a desolate wash, making for a di tant clump 
of bushes, when I was abruptly recalled to attentiveness by a succession of sonor- 
ous raps, startingly plain even above the swish of the wind. Tracing this woodsy 
sound over into the next arroyo, I located the drummer, diligently pegging away 
at the stretched hide of a dessicated horse carcass. Here the forlorn bird was evi- 
dently trying to strip a meal from this impregnable cache of natural jerky. 1 
