ORNITHOLOGIST 
— AND — 
OOLOGIST. 
$1.00 per 
Annum. 
Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 
Established, Marob, 1875. 
Single Copy, 
10 Cents. 
VOL. VII. 
NORWICH, CONN., SEPTEMBER, 1882 . 
NO. 20 . 
Gleanings from Bendire’s Letters. 
From letters received from Capt. Chas. E. 
Bendire, at Fort Walla Walla, W. T., from 
time to time, we make the following ex¬ 
tracts, knowing from their value that they 
will interest our many readers : 
Nov. 9, 1881, he took a specimen of the 
Snowy Owl {N'yctea scandiaca,) w'hich, as 
far as he know's, is the first jjropeiiy au¬ 
thenticated Pacific coast record. He saw’ 
a specimen on two or three occasions near 
Camp Harney, Oregon, but failed to get 
any, and at Walla Walla, in 1880, saw part 
of one. 
Jan. 9,1882, he mentions seeing another 
specimen, and the party who brought it in 
reported seeing several others at the time 
he captured this one. The Captain thinks 
they may be found as common on the w’est 
coast as far south as Walla Walla as they 
are in the east—particularly when the dif¬ 
ference in climate in the same latitude is 
taken into consideration—the climate in 
Winter where he is stationed being com¬ 
parable with that of Virginia and North 
Carolina. 
Nov. 19, 1881, the first Bohemian Wax- 
wings {Ampelis garruhisC) w’ere taken, and 
during the last week of the same month a 
fine Arctic Blue Bird {Sialia arctica) w’as 
killed. Up to this date the weather had 
not been cold, although a little snow^ had 
fallen. Dec. 18, he secured fourteen Wax- 
wings, and about the middle of January, 
1882. a dozen more. Soon after this they 
left the immediate vicinity of the Fort. 
Under the date of Dec. 1 , 1881, he 
says : “ It is i’etnarkal)le how conution the 
Great-horned Owds are this season. I 
have already skinned ten durmg the past 
tw’o months and no two are exactly alike. 
With perhaps two exceptions they are, I 
think, referable to the Scitiirntus form. I 
believe we are to have a severe Winter and 
that these birds come down from the 
mountains ; for surely they don’t all breed 
about here, or else I w’ould have become 
acquainted wuth them during the breeding 
season. Nearly all w’ere excessively fat 
as W’ere the other species belonging to this 
family that I have taken to date, viz. ; the 
Long-eared and Kennicott’s. Most of the 
Short-eared, however, w’ere very poor, 
probably migrants from the high north, 
like the Snowy Ow’l, which w’as also very 
ill-conditioned. We have about six inches 
of snow, but the weather is 2 >leasaut.” 
Uj) to March 9, 1882, he had not taken 
any eggs of the Great-horned Owd and 
hardly exjiected to, having killed not less 
than sixteen. From w’hat he has been 
told, he is almost inclined to believe that 
some of these birds occasionally breed in 
holes in the ground, and if true, it would 
account for his not finding any of their 
nests about the Fort heretofore. 
During December, a sj^ecimen of tScops 
asio Kennicotti w’as taken under rather 
liecmliar circumstances. He says : “ I w'as 
going home from dinner at 5 p. m., as I 
live in another house in the garrison about 
one hundred and fifty yards from my quar¬ 
ters—in front of the houses we have a 
row of trees growing, some of them quite 
large locusts and box elders. On one of 
the latter and conq)aratively low I saw’ one 
of these Owds, but how’ to get him under 
