92 
Vol. XVI 
FROM FIELD AND STUDY 
Hooded Merganser near Los Angeles. — A female Hooded Merganser {Lophodytes 
cucullatus) was taken by Mr. A. E. Jackson at Del Rey, Los Angeles County, on Novem- 
ber 27, 1913. The species is of sufficient rarity in southern California to make the record 
ing of this capture seem worth while. — W. LfiE Chambers, Los Angeles, California. 
A New Bird for the Kansas List. — On April 12, 1913, I secured a female robin 
near Lawrence, Kansas, which upon examination proves to be Planesticus m. achrusterns, 
a diagnosis confirmed by Mr. H. C. Oberholser. Other specimens have been collected and 
examined in this same locality in years past. This race seems to be a regular migrant in 
April, and may perhaps prove to be the breeding form in the southeastern portion of the 
State. The nearest point at which this bird has been recorded previously is Van Buren, 
Arkansas (Howell, Birds of Arkansas, Bui. 38, Biological Survey, p. 92). — AlEx Wetmore, 
Biological Survey, Washington, D. C. 
California Brown Pelican in British Columbia. — ^On July 18, 1913, about 10 a. m., 
between Alert Bay, Johnson Straits, and Round Island, east entrance to Queen Charlotte 
Sound, British Columbia, I saw a California Brown Pelican (Pelecanus calif ornicus). The 
weather had been very warm, dry and clear ; but a dense fog that morning had, for safety’s 
sake, necessitated the “Spokane” to lie at anchor at Alert Bay from five to nine a. m. 
After it cleared and we were under full steam again, we passed a low, narrow sandbar upon 
which the Pelican stood surrounded by a flock of sea gulls. With my field glasses I had a 
long and most satisfactory study of him, in his characteristic (profile) pose, with his neck 
and bill forming an inverted V. — Mrs. F. T. Bicknell, Los Angeles, California. 
More Records of the Emperor Goose in California. — Mr. Vernon Shepherd, a 
prominent taxidermist of San Francisco, has reported to me that he has known of at least 
a dozen specimens of the Emperor Goose {Philacte canagica) having been taken in Cali- 
fornia since 1906. Three of this number he took himself near Dixon, Solano County, Cali- 
fornia. He has donated to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology a mounted specimen of a 
male taken by a market hunter at Colusa, Colusa County, in November, 1912. The speci- 
men was sent to the market in San Francisco and was obtained by Mr. Shepherd from L. 
Scatena Company. 
Mr. Wm. Hackmeier, another taxidermist of San Francisco, has reported the two fol- 
lowing records, the first of which was verified by correspondence with the collector. 
Male specimen taken November IS, 1913, 10 miles west of Modesto, Stanislaus County, 
California, by W. D. Toomes. The bird came to the blind alone and was shot. The speci- 
men was mounted by Mr. Hackmeier and is now in the possession of the collector at Mo- 
desto. 
An individual identified by Mr. Hackmeier as an immature male Emperor Goose was 
taken near Ingomar, Merced County, California, in December, 1912, by Louis Pfitzer. The 
bird was not preserved. 
The records for Stanislaus and Merced Counties are the first known instances of the oc- 
currence of the Emperor Goose in the San Joaquin Valley. There have been but four previous 
published records of the occurrence of this goose in California. — H. C. Bryant, Museum of 
Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. 
Flight of Swainson Hawks at Pomona, California. — On April 4 of the present 
year, while collecting in a small wash just east of here, a boy called my attention to a 
large blackish hawk perched in the top of a small eucalyptus. It was easily shot and 
proved- to be a Buteo szminsoni in melanistic plumage. At the shot several more flew from 
a near-by grove of tall eucalyptus, and a passing train scared out the remainder of the 
flock which numbered about thirty birds all told. About half of them flew close past me 
and showed themselves to be in the same dark plumage as the one taken. Of the birds 
that remained circling over the grove one certainly was of a much lighter color than the 
rest ; but whether these last were as dark as those seen at close range I am unable to say 
for certain, though such was apparently the case. — Adriaan v.\n Rossem, Pomona, Cali- 
fornia. 
