^Mar,, 1902. I 
THE CONDOR 
47 
The Passing of the Great Blue Heron at Santa Monica.— When I moved to Santa 
Monica in the fall of 1X94 I had just about time to get used to the surroundings before the next 
collecting season, and found it the best outlook of an}' place I had ever been in. On the north 
are the Santa Monica mountains, on the south Ballona swamp and between the two a sloping 
mesa. Here, as one might expect, a great variety of birds is to be found. 
On the north side of town, twenty-two miles distant, is a large canyon the bottom of which is 
completely covered with immense sycamores. Here on May 13, 1895 1 found a colony of 
great blue herons nesting and counted in all about thirty-five nests, of which only three con- 
tained sets of four eggs each with incubation well advanced, a few young and the rest apparently 
deserted. The nests were placed in the tops of the tallest trees about seventy feet up and were 
composed entirely of sticks lined with a few sycamore leaves which I suppose fell into the nest 
from the branches above. The nests were as close together as nesting sites would permit and 
were all crowded in six or seven trees. 
Every year the number of nests decreased until in igoo only four nests were left, three of 
which were occupied, and in 1901 only one nest was to be seen and whether it was occupied or 
not I could not say as I only made one trip to the canyon. Next year I shall be surprised if any 
are there as the birds are being shot right along, although protected by the law. W. EEE, 
Santa Monica, Cal. 
A Correction — The specimen upon which the record of Colymbns anritus from Mono Take 
(Condor IV. p. 10) was based proves to be Colynibus nigricollis califoniicus. The bird is a 
young female and in some characters resembles auriins, but in its color and small size it is 
clearly referable to californicns. Wai.ter K. Fisher. 
Fall Distribution of the Western Robin— In partial answer to Mr. Williams’ inquiry in 
The Condor Vol. Ill, No 6. I will state that Merula m. propinqua is very common along the 
low mountains of Sonoma and Mendocino counties in the months of August and September, 
when adults and young may be seen around the springs and cattle trough in good-sized flocks. 
In some years they are quite plentiful in Marin County, feeding on berries- during the month of 
October, but 1 have never noted any at this time in juvenile plumage in this locality. Some 
years they seem to find food more plentiful elsewhere and do not come in here until well along 
into the winter. Joseph Maildi.ard, San Geronimo, Cal. 
COMMUNICATIONS. 
Editor The Condor: 
Will you kindly publish the manuscript I 
send herewith. The editor of Science cannot 
see his way to printing my rejoinder to Pro- 
fessor Clark’s article which appeared a few 
days since in his journal. It involves a very 
important point in the relationships of birds. 
Yours very sincerely, 
" R. W. SHUFELDT, 
Fellow A. O. U. 
PTERYEOSIS OF HUMMINGBIRDS AND 
vSWIFTS. 
In a recent issue of Science (Jan. 17, 1902, 
pp. 108, 109) Professor Hubert Eyman Clark 
publishes some interesting notes on the com- 
parative morphology of the swifts, goatsuck- 
ers and hummingbirds (Cypseli, Caprunnlgt 
and Trochili.) In this article Professor Clark 
makes extensive reference to a memoir of 
mine on -Studies of the Macrochires' pub- 
lished some twenty years ago by the Linmean 
Society of London (1888), and it seems to me 
has left unnoticed a number of facts that cer- 
tainly should have been noticed in his con- 
tribution. 
The title to this latter asks the question 
“Are Hummingbirds Cypseloid or Caprirnul- 
goid”? to which, by no means difficult ques- 
tion, I would reply that the hummingbirds are 
neither like the swifts nor are they like the 
goatsuckers, and decidedly less like the latter 
than they are like the former. As I have fully 
examined the entire anatomy of all three of 
these groups, it would seem that I am as well 
if not better, prepared to answer such a ques- 
tion had I only examined their pterylography, 
even though the latter examination included 
examples of every species of swift, goatsucker 
and hummingbird in the world known to sci- 
ence. 
But it is only the jiterylography of these sev- 
eral groups of birds that concerns us here, as 
there is no evidence before me that Profes,sor 
Clark has investigated any other part of their 
morphology. Now Professor Clark admits in 
his article in Science that he is familiar with 
the memoir contributed to the Proceedings of 
the Zoological Society of London for April 2, 
1901, by Professor D’Arcy Thompson, entitled 
‘On the Pterylosis of the Giant Hummingbird 
(Patagona gigas)' . He admits that “No group 
of birds with which I am acquainted shows 
such remarkable uniformity in their pterylo- 
graphy as do the hummingbirds’’ (p. 109). 
F'urther, Professor Clark admits that “.So far as 
I can see Professor Thompson’s figures of Pat- 
agona would answer, almost without change 
for any of the ii species 1 have examined;’’ he 
