California Islands Research Articles

Marine Oligocene of the West Coast of North America

Introductory Remarks This paper comprises a general survey of the known data concerning the paleogeography, climatic conditions, and faunal relationships of the Oligocene as found in California, Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver Island. The great thickness of the marine Tertiary sediments on the West Coast forms a striking contrast to the much thinner deposits of the same age found in the Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plain province ; also the evidences of crustal movements of enormous magnitude, which are represented by great angular unconformities at various horizons in the Tertiary of the West Coast, indicate conditions very different from those which existed during the same general period in the eastern region. The Tertiary deposits on the West Coast were, for the most part, laid down in geosynclinal depressions which paralleled the axes of the present mountain ranges. In these slowly sinking troughs the sediments sometimes accumulated to enormous thickness before deposition was interrupted, . . .

Birds from the West Coast of Lower California and Adjacent Islands (Concluded)

Birds from the West Coast of Lower California and Adjacent Islands (Concluded)

Birds from the West Coast of Lower California and Adjacent Islands

sometimes bunches of them. They were always bright and in good condition of flesh. They appeared to be idle which leads me to think that the late hatches do not lay the following spring. If this were to be seen only in summer I would believe that they had been robbed of their possessions, but it occurs when the hens should be nesting. The counties of Albany, Converse, Natrona, and Carbon are the places where grouse are most abundant in Wyoming. A single hunter has been known to kill a hundred birds in a day without a dog. The best hunting is found over lands adjacent to springs, down green draws and the bottoms along streams, and the best time to find coveys is in the morning or evening when the birds are feeding. After feeding they hide either on the feeding ground or at some distance from it where the sage is large enough to screen them from enemies and the rays of the sun. Ofttimes a hen with her brood will venture to take refuge in the shade of a ranchman's cabin or barn. It is certain that grouse breed above seven thousand feet but just how much I am unable to say. Hail storms often kill large numbers when they strike the places of hiding. When their feathers are drenched with rain, the birds are often unable to rise, and at such times have been killed with a stick.