ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
9 
Gonzales. Mr. A. W. Anthony of the San 
Diego Society of Natural History and Dr. G. 
Dallas Hanna of the California Academy of 
Sciences were two American members of the 
party who cooperated in the scientific in¬ 
vestigations. 
The Permanent Wild Life Protection Fund 
has conferred its gold medal for distinguished 
services upon President Obregon and also upon 
Prof. Herrera for their action in behalf of the 
three important species of Mexican mammals 
concerned in the three decrees above reported. 
THE LEMMINGS OF POINT BARROW, 
ALASKA 
By Charles D. Brower. 
I AM enclosing a picture of a banded lemming, 
which I have had since February. When 
I got the animal it was in its white winter 
pelage. Now it has lost almost all the white and 
changed to summer colors. It certainly has 
been interesting to watch the little lady. She 
is quite tame. I cleaned out a show case and 
fixed it up as nearly as possible to reproduce 
what lemmings are used to out-of-doors, all but 
the snow, and that it does not seem to miss be¬ 
cause every day I put in a large pan full of 
snow and after playing in it for a time it leaves 
it and goes to its nest. 
Its favorite food is rolled oats, raisins, prunes, 
grass roots and bark of small willows. I put 
a large glass candy-jar in the case containing 
plenty of grass dried and immediately she 
started to build a nest. Whenever it is neces¬ 
sary to clean the place, I take the nest away 
and at once she builds another. By putting 
plenty of straw in the case she has fine run¬ 
ways. I keep sand in a box to which she goes 
the same as a cat would and does not make a 
mess anywhere else. 
About ten days ago some of the boys found 
a young one of the same species about as large 
as my thumb and brought it to me. This I put 
in the cage with the large one. At first she 
rather objected to it, fought it and drove it 
away from the nest, but as the little one did 
not fight back she seemed to finally adopt it 
and now is mothering it as though it were her 
own. The little fellow is in his young pelage 
colored almost mouse grey, only his fur is soft 
and fine like spun silk. It is amusing to watch 
them play and see the female lick the little one 
all over and fix his fur. 
The banded lemmings apparently have their 
young in the winter as this winter I received 
two very small ones that were found and brought 
here in January. Unfortunately both were dead. 
A few years ago, we hardly ever saw a banded 
lemming here, although the brown or common 
variety was numerous. During the last few 
years the banded seem fairly plentiful. 
Once, many years ago (to be exact, it was the 
spring of 1887, early in June) we had a vast 
migration of the common lemming. They came 
from the southeast,—how far I do not know,— 
but it was about eight miles across their trail 
north and south. They were about a week 
passing this station. They travelled northwest 
and went out upon the sea ice, not stopping for 
the water but jumping from the ice and swim¬ 
ming until they were drowned. We were whal¬ 
ing at the time and off shore our boats passed 
through whole winrows of dead lemmings every 
little while. They seemed collected as though 
they were brought together in a tide-rip. The 
members of the main body were drowned, but 
around us the brown lemmings were quite plenti¬ 
ful all the rest of that year. 
TRUMPETER SWANS IN BRITISH 
COLUMBIA 
By Hoyes Lloyd 
Supervisor of Wild Life Protection, 
Canadian National Parks. 
SMALL flock of trumpeter swans, repre¬ 
sentatives of a magnificent species which 
was once thought to be extinct, is pro¬ 
tected on its wintering grounds in British 
Columbia by the Canadian National Parks 
Branch of the Canadian Department of the 
Interior and by the Provincial authorities. 
Severe penalties for molesting these birds are 
provided by the Migratory Birds Convention 
Act. 
There were nineteen trumpeter swans on this 
wintering ground during the winter of 1919-20; 
nine were there during the winter of 1920-21, 
and eleven were there during the winter of 
1921-22. Local sentiment is much in favor of 
the protection of these birds, and there is some 
little hope for the species as a whole because 
other wintering grounds in Canada are known. 
The Parks Branch has employed a local 
guardian for this flock ever since the presence 
of these birds on this wintering ground was 
reported to the Branch. 
The decrease in the number of wintering 
birds during the past two winters may have 
been caused by the fact that there was believed 
to be much open water to the north of this 
wintering-ground, although the fact that only 
two cygnets were present during each of the 
last two winters looks rather serious. 
