--Regarding the nesting of he Canvasback (Marila valisineria), I have on two occasion caught young ones, nearly full-grown, in New Mex- ico, where I believe they nest in considerable numbers in the mountain lakes. Half a dozen pairs used to breed every year on a prairie pond on the C. S. Ranch, the property of Mr. Charles Springer, near Cimarron, Colfax County, New Mexico. I found them there last in 1915. In California, the southward migration of Canvasbacks leaves the coast at about the latitude of San Luis Obispo, and from that point follows the moun- tain lakes south. Many of them winter in the lake,s of the San Pedro Martir Moun- tains, Lower California, but one never sees them on either coast of the Peninsula. The records of a club like the 'Bolsa Chica show how rare the "Cans" are along t.he south- ern coast of California, and yet on the grounds of .the San Timoteo Gun Club, near Banning, Riveraaide County, one used to bag two Cans for one of every other kind of bird ! I once handled two fine specimens of the Black Brant (Branta nigricans) that were shot by a friend on a reservoir near Redlands in 1903. They were members of a flock of about a dozen, and I remember my surprise at seeing thls strictly maritime species so far from the sea. I question whether the numbers of these birds have been so greatly diminished by shooting. They still winter in vast numbers on San Quentin Bay, Lower California, where the few gunners who have sought them have had no dif- ficulty in making disgracefully huge bags. Perhaps the brant have learned to avoid our coast entirely, and pass by each year, in scarcely diminished numbers, to winter on the Mexican bays, where the report of a shotgun Is seldom or never heard. I believe that' changing conditions, brought about by the deplorable influx of settlers into California, lead one to think that the fowl have decreased more than is perhaps the case--though Heaven knows the decrease is pitiful enough. In 1919, when I spent a few months at home, I found that dozens of ponds and lakes formerly alive with waterfowl, were deserted. Were the birds nearly all dead, or had they changed tleir wintering places? The geese ave gone, like the cranes which, less than twenty years ago, used to pass in thousands over Riverside and San Bernardino counties, mi- grating northward from the Colorado delta. But concerning the duck.s, I am not so sure. There are at present in California two great wintering regions for countless myri- ads of wild duck: the Sacramento Valley about Colusa, and the Imperial Valley in the south. The number of fowl concentrated in these two regions is staggering to the imagination. Only two years ago I sat in a blind near Gridley and forgot to use my gun while I watched tens of thou.sands of sprig trailing like films of lace across the sky. I believe that in an hour not less than a quarter of a million birds passed south- ward. The rice plantations of this region account, in part at least, for the desertion of other parts of the valley; the great irrigated areas of Imperial, with the rule swamps where the New River rnlS into the Salton Sea, seem to me to account for much of the desertion of once populous waters in southern California. A generation ago ducks were almost unknown in the Imperial district. If Imperial were suddenly to go dry, and all the birds wintering there to scatter out, as formerly, over the lakes and marshes of southern California, the prospect might:look less depressing. The fresh water marshes of Lake Chapala, in the state of Jalisco, Mexico', form another haven for waterfowl. At one end of the lake there is a great area of flooded land cut by a veritable labyrinth o sluggish channels, 400 square miles, I should say. The far interior 'of ths swampy paradise, reached after three days' trayel in a native canoe, is a vast sanctuary for wildfowl, a region. of gently-rolling damp prairies, set with small ponds, and traversed by a network of navigable channels leading to the great lake. I saw as many geese, White-fronted (Anser albifrons) and Snow (Chen hyperbo. reus), as I have ever seen in the Sacramento Valley, and the number of ducks was past belief, with some interesting species, like the Masked and Florida Black or Dusky, to lend variety. A more thorough investigation of this field would be worth while, for. ! have reason to believe that several species of northern ducks breed there, and breed at a much later season than in our country. On November 20 (1909) I found a brood of young Shovellers (Spatula clypeata) unable to fly, and the natives told me that hun- dreds of ducks nested there, among them Gadwall, Dusky, Sprig, Shovellet, and Cinna- mon Teal. The South Pacific, where I am living now, is a poor place from the point of view of a lover of the Anatidae. We have only one duck in the islands south of the Line (though I know a man who claims that Shovellers come to Penrhyn Island every year about Thanksgiving time, and remain for two or three months), called Arias superciliosa, and reminding one of a small dull-colored Gadwall. Three migrating waders reach Tahiti every year from the north: The Pacific Golden Plover (Charadrius dominicus fulvus), the Wandering Tattler (Het'eractitis incanus), and the Bristle-thighed Curlew (Numenius tahitiensis).--C. B. Nean0FF, Papeetc, Tahiti, Society Islands, November 22, 1921.