Transcribing the field notes of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Collector:Grinnell - 1925 Location: San Diego Date: March 3, 1925 Page Number: 2452

in any feasible way. Klauber is amateur herpetologist, a good friend and scientific protege of Dr. VanDenburgh before the latter's death. His published list of San Diego County snakes is very creditable. Klauber took me out to the Scripps Institution beyond Lajolla in the afternoon yesterday; there we saw Dr. F.B. Sumner and the latter's "murarium." The chief things Dr. F.B. Sumner is breeding are the Alabama races of Peromyscus, a white one in San Jose Island [unknown 4], a dark one in the interior of the state, and one of intermediate tone on the mainland seashore. Dr. Sumner caught alive and brought with very few fatalities over 150 of these mice to Lajolla, where they are thriving and breeding in his mouse-house. I saw the first generation from the sand-white race, bred in confinement, and they are just like their parents - no darkening. Dr. Sumner has cross-mated some of the mice, and has blended intermediate offspring, between parents of the different races; in other words the characters do not sharply segregate. So far, attempted matings between the Alabama (P. leucopus, ssp.) with Californian P. maniculatus, ssp., have proven fruitless. The Austrian zoologist, Dr. Paul Kammerer, had been at Lajolla in the forenoon; Dr. Sumner was very

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Colnett, Sat. 31 degrees Date: October 28, 1925 ?Page Number: 2609

on agave hillsides, where they live in closest association with the intermedia wood rats.

6643 Black-Tailed Gnatcatcher (female sign) ad. 5.8g. Shot in artemesia californica (?) bush. 6644 Western Gnatcatcher (male sign) ad. 5.6g. Shot in sumach bush.

Barometer tonight 29.85 inches; warm, muggy; high fog all day. One perspires too freely for comfort. 7 p.m. - Writing by light of of burning agaves- dead ones, of which there are many on the hillside above our camp. Just went the rounds of my traps by flash light - one Perognathus and one Peromyscus, only, so far. Had re-set Dipodomys traps at fresh burrows, but untouched; maybe these rats do not come out so early, altho it was quite dark by 5:30. Saw a Black Phoebe late this evening. The Western Gnatcatcher taken is the only one of that species so far noted here. The Black-Tailed Gnatcatcher is fairly common, but I find them hard to see by reason of their dark colors, much harder than the other species. The black-tails keep nearer the ground, among the dark stems in the thick brush-clumps. They have two kinds of notes, the faint nasal mew, and a louder, repeated che-che-che-che; so I was right (p. 2593).

Oct. 29 Discarded: Peromyscus m. gambeli, (female sign) (4 emb.), 2 small blue pelaged males, all under composite bushes out on bottomland. 6645 Perognathus arenarius (male symbol) 9.7g. 142 x 71 x 20 x 5. Same trap as yesterday’s. 6646 Black-Tailed Gnatcatcher (male symbol) 5.8g. Shot in Rhus laurina bush.