72 THE CONDOR Vol. XIV with a loud cry from one of the lower limbs of a massive pine above his head. This was the only occasion on which a bird was seen to alight in a tree. A long day's work at the marsh on June 9 revealed three more nests. The first of these, one with six eggs, well incubated, was the most perfectly built nest of the goose that I have ever seen, being constructed with all the care that most of the smaller birds exercise. It was made principally of dry marsh grasses. The second nest held a set of five eggs, and was placed by a s?nall willow on a little mound of earth rising in a tule patch in a secluded portion of the swamp. Dry tules entered largely into its composition. In this instance the bird did not rise until we were within twenty-five feet, although they usually flushed at a distance varying from forty to one hundred feet. The last nest, found and collected by Carriger, was deserted, having been flooded by the recent rise of water. The six eggs it contained were addled. In closing I may say the recording of the White-cheeked Goose (Branta Fig. 26. YOIJNGlcANADA GEESE, TWO MONTHS OLD. RAISED IN CAPTIVITY. LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA canadensis occidentals)at Lake Tahoe (Pacific Coast Avifauna, No. 3, p. 21), not being based, so f?r as I have been able to learn, on an actual skin, seems very questionable; personally I consider it an error. Regarding the specimen collected, now number 17,224 9f the collection of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley, Mr. Grinndll writes as follows: "As to the identity of the goose, it is not the White-cheeki?d Goose, as has been generally supposed since the early writings of Belding. We have here what is commonly called the White-cheeked Goose (B.c. occidentalis) from the Sitkan district. It is slightly smaller and very much darker th'an your bird. Your bird is practically a duplicate of one we have here from Southern California, and which we have always considered very close to B.c. ca?adensis. In other words, the breeding goose of the Sierras (and probably of all the lakes of northeastern California) is the Canada Goose (Branta canaden ris c?nadensis), or at least the closest to it of any of the described forms." i
