12 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVIII 
calls Promerops; a new Mergulus like alle but entirely distinct, with others 
that need examining. He has the most beautiful specimens of well-known birds 
and others not so well known, as Sitta pygmea, Tyrannula saya, Tyrannula 
nigricahs, Sialia occidentalis, etc. Decidedly the gem of his collection is a most 
superb specimen of Leptostoma longicauda a beautiful Cuckoo-like bird which 
walks on the ground, but I have not time really to tell you about it. His 
Lophortyx gambelii is splendid and I can find no description of it in books to 
which I have access. ’ ’ 
The crested titmouse was the Plain Titmouse, the other one “like Seto- 
phaga” was the Wren-tit, and the Mergulus was Cassin’s Auklet. 
On April 5, 1849, Gambel left on another expedition to California, joining 
a company with Isaac J. Wistar, then a young man of twenty-one, later gen- 
eral in the Civil War and president both of the Philadelphia Academy and of 
the American Philosophical Society. General Wistar has told me the few de- 
tails of the trip up to a point where the party divided, Gambel going with 
those who followed Hudspith’s trail which crossed the Sierra near the head of 
the Sacramento Valley. They suffered great hardships being caught by the 
snows in the mountains, and Gambel and a few others were the only ones to 
reach California. He almost immediately contracted typhoid and died on 
December 13, 1849. He was buried on a sunny hillside on the Feather River. 
His death terminated a career that would probably have yielded results of the 
utmost value to ornithology ; for in the short space of eight years Gambel dem- 
onstrated that he was possessed of remarkable ability both as an explorer 
and field naturalist and as a student of natural history. 
Immediately after the acquisition of California by the United States at 
the close of the Mexican War, John G. Bell, the famous taxidermist of New 
York, who had accompanied Audubon up the Missouri in 1843, made a trip to 
the coast, crossing through Central America as did so many of those who 
rushed westward in search of gold. Bell returned April 17, 1850, having got- 
ten a number of interesting novelties which were described by Cassin and pur- 
chased for the Philadelphia Academy ; among these were Bell 's Sparrow, Law- 
rence ’s Goldfinch, Williamson’s Sapsucker, and White-headed Woodpecker. 
Of the last, Bell says: “I shot this bird in Oregon Canon near Georgetown 
about 12 miles from Sutter’s Mill. It seemed to prefer the tall pine trees and 
generally kept very high”. 
Baird was about to describe the same bird some years later from a speci- 
men which had been obtained by some other collector for the Smithsonian 
Institution, and we find in Cassin’s letters the following amusing sentence: “I 
guess you had better not describe that new woodpecker — black with a white 
head — it is not so very new — compare it with Melanerpes albolarvatus Cassin 
Jour. A. N. S. last number published — perhaps you had better not describe 
any of them. Send them this way !” He was constantly arguing or joking with 
Baird about the new birds that were discovered and was jealous of any one 
else publishing the novelties. Baird seems to have good-naturedly sent him 
most of the Pacific Railroad material, and of course with the birds and books 
to which Cassin then had access at Philadelphia he could determine what was 
new better than any one else. 
One lot sent for his opinion some years later contained a fine new species 
of Purple Finch, which he considered the best thing in the collection, adding 
as a suggestion to Baird, name it Cassini, which, by the way, he did. Regard- 
ing Hutton’s Vireo, Cassin writes: “Calling that Vireo after your 
