(3 re ye wyess SP eye ve xing ee Asia rier a = s The Birds of Calitornia Copy No. f/f _ Patrons’ Edition, De Luxe SUBSCRIBED BY FOR This edition comprises the first choice of selected sheets from the first impressions of the format de luxe of “The Birds of California;” and its circula- tion is limited to an approved clientele of 250 os LA ) ern Wiehe i“ The Birds of California A Complete, Scientific and Popular Account of the 580 any and Subspecies of Birds Found in the State By William Leon Dawson of Santa Barbara Director of the International Museum o} f Comparativ e Odlagy, Author of “The Birds of Ohio" : and (with Mr. Bowles) of “The Birds of W ashington” Ulustrated by go Photogravures, 120 Full-page Duotone Plates and More Than 1100 Half-tone Cuts of Birds in Life, Nests, Eggs, and Favorite Haunts, from Photographs Chiefly by Donald R. Dicer. pins M. Pierce, Wm. L. Finley and hs e is Ono T1O . d : Together with ta te an aw aa n the é anda Series of 4 life size 110 Full-pa 18, about 3¢ From a Full-page painting by Allan Brooks Chiefly by Major Allan Brooks : Format De Luxe Patrons’ Edition Complete in Four Volumes Volume One : South Moulton Company San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco ~ 1923 Sald Only by Subscription. All Rights Reserved & The Birds of California A Complete, Scientific and Popular Account of the 580 Species and Subspecies of Birds Found in the State By William Leon Dawson of Santa Barbara Director of the International Museum of Comparative Odlogy, Author of “The Birds of Ohio” and (with Mr. Bowles) of “The Birds of Washington” Illustrated by 30 Photogravures, 120 Full-page Duotone Plates and More Than 1100 Half-tone Cuts of Birds in Life, Nests, Eggs, and Favorite Haunts, from Photographs Chiefly by Donald R. Dickey, Wright M. Pierce, Wm. L. Finley and the Author Together with 44 Drawings in the Text and a Series of tro Full-page Color Plates Chiefly by Major Allan Brooks Format De Luxe Patrons’ Edition Complete in Four Volumes Volume One South Moulton Company San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco 1923 Sold Only by Subscription. All Rights Reserved TEXT, DUOTONE-PLATES AND PHOTOGRAVURES, BUT NOT THE COLOR-PLATES, CoPpyRIGHT 1921 AND 1923 BY WILLIAM LEON DAWSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION Composition by Typographic Service Co., Los Angeles. Press-work by Wolfer Printing Co., Los Angeles. Four-color half-tone plates chiefly by Star Engraving Co., Los Angeles. Photogravures by Suffolk Engraving & Electrotyping Co., Cambridge. Duotones entirely and half-tones chiefly by Star Engraving Co. Binding by Leather Products and Finishing Co., Los Angeles. TO Ellen Browning Scripps Lover of the human kind and of birds and of flowers and of books Patron of science and of art and of education Whose steadfast faith has made its publication possible This work is gratefully Dedicated Pretace SINCE the dawn of the scientific era the study of birds, ornithology, has occupied an honorable place. Men like Linneus, Brisson and Cuvier, Temminck, Vieillot, Forbes and Gray, and more recently, Gadow, Evans and Hartert, Sharpe, Ridgway, Oberholser and Grinnell, have expounded its technique; while apostles like Audubon and Gould, Baird, Newton and Coues, Hudson, Chapman and Beebe, have published its gospel and immortalized its claims. Without claiming either the technical equipment of a Ridg- way or the apostolic fervor of an Audubon, the author has tried nevertheless to do a rough justice to the dual claims of descriptive science and of artistic interpretation in a field which he realizes to be singularly favored, not alone for the variety and wealth of its bird life, but for the number and quality of its human inhabitants. As a citizen by choice of the Golden State, the writer can truly say that California seems to offer unparalleled advantages for bird study. Indeed, its range of avian interest is fairly typified by the fact that within its borders a bird of modest powers, as a Clark Nut- cracker, might breakfast (somewhat sparingly) at the lowest point upon the American continent, viz., in the Death Valley, and lunch (even more austerely) upon the highest point of land in the United States, viz., the summit of Mt. Whitney, 14,501 feet above the level of the sea. California is the land of contrasts, and the description of its vividly contrasting and kaleidoscopic bird-life is, perhaps, the most privileged task which might fall to the lot of an ornithologist. It is the province of this work to appreciate and, so far as possible, to express, not alone the conceptual entities of science called species, but the very persons and lives of those hundreds of millions of our fellow travelers and sojourners, called birds, the birds of California. To this end the birds have been viewed not alone through the rigid eye of science, but through the more roving, or tolerant, or even penetrating eye of the poet, the interpreter, the apologist—the mystic even—the at-all-times bird-lover. With such a broad claim of latitude, it goes without saying that ‘‘The Birds of California’ is anything but ‘‘complete,’’ in the sense of having said all that might be said about any given species. Our effort has been rather to present a conspectus of bird-life in California in its true proportions of interest. The commoner or more impor- tant species have been allowed a much greater space, precisely on this account, that they are common and important. Nor is it possible to claim completeness on the ground that all the conclusions of other workers are herein recorded. While it is true that all the major sources of information have been catalogued and consulted, it remains true also that this work is essentially an original and personal contribution. The author is a poor compiler. There are many who are gifted in this direction, and they have performed valuable service. Yet we have had so many digests and rehashes and meticulous accumulations of disconnected notes, that it has seemed worth while, for lil once, to break away and start afresh. It is for this reason that the author has relig- iously abstained from reading Audubon or Wilson, or indeed any of the “‘old masters’’— to the end that he might see his birds with fresh eyes and use, if possible, an unworn language. This has entailed real sacrifice, but it may also prove to have been a real gain. Yet having said so much by way of apology for alleged originality, I have done scant justice to the magnificent accumulations of the Cooper Ornithological Club in “The Condor’ (now in its twenty-fifth year), or, indeed, to my own dependence upon it. Through the courtesy of the Club itself and of one of its business managers, Mr. W. Lee Chambers, I have been supplied with a double file of ‘‘The Condor”’ for clipping, and have made large use of it. ‘‘The Birds of California’ is, therefore, essentially a free digest of the codperative work accomplished in California during the past quarter of a century. My thanks are due, both individually and collectively, to all contribu- tors of ‘‘The Condor,” and to a lesser degree of ‘‘The Auk’’; and my only regret is that the more impatient movement of my own particular genre has precluded the possibility of doing exact justice to all available sources. Consistency in the interpretation of bird-life is as impossible today as it was twenty years ago. Most of us who follow the birds are partly scientist, partly sportsman, and partly poet. Each interest in turn combats the others, or is at least seen to be incon- sistent with them. Nevertheless, even here some ground has been gained. The field of ‘‘sport,’’ i. e., of bird-killing as sport, has been more and more sharply restricted, until its fundamental inconsistencies are beginning to appear. An outlet for honest energies has, however, been provided by bird photography and, indeed, by note-taking. In science, likewise, the ample accumulations of the larger museums have made it un- necessary that the serious student of ornithology should always lug about a shot-gun. Modern binoculars increase the field efficiency of the student eight or ten times, and the liabilities of error are correspondingly reduced. Here also the new scientific sport of bird-banding (accomplished by a painless method of trapping) is likely to displace the cruder method of bird-killing, and this bids fair to accomplish tenfold greater results for science. A tremendous gain has been made during the last three decades in the sentimental attitude toward birds. The pursuit of birds with sticks and stones and guns and the indiscriminate robbing of birds’ nests have given way to intelligent interest and a solicitous care for the welfare of the birds on the part of old and young. Too much credit for this salutary result cannot be given to the National Association of Audubon Societies, and to its affiliated societies which exist throughout the land. That the inter- est thus aroused has not always exhibited the characteristics of maturity, and that, in turn, some incidental injustice has been done to science, goes without saying. Never- theless, there now exists a splendid and alert interest in birds on the part of the American people, and to such a body of interest science presents its case with confidence and rejoicing. In the preparation of this work the author has enjoyed unusual opportunities of study and travel afield. Work has been conducted in all but four of California’s fifty- eight counties, and the ones omitted are homogeneous in character with the regions visited. In a realm so vast and so varied as California, however, one must be privi- leged indeed who could claim complete understanding of its diverse topographical and faunistic elements. For myself, I confess to a sense of utter inadequacy. There are 1V still uncharted depths and unscaled heights in California, and a wilderness so wide- spread and so near at hand that one might deliberately lose himself in its mazes within two hours of almost any given point. Field work has been conducted chiefly in the breeding season, say April to July, and one season was spent in Arizona with a view to getting a quicker, surer knowledge of the desert species which invade our own borders. If a disproportionate interest seems to attach to the treatments of the mountain- dwelling species, it is with deliberate intention to promote a quicker enthusiasm for these unfrequented fastnesses. The author is also under deep obligation to many years of bird questing spent in the State of Washington. The result of these experiences was embodied in a two- volume work, ‘“‘The Birds of Washington,”’ published in 1909; and in the preparation of this work the author enjoyed the coéperation of Mr. John Hooper Bowles, of Tacoma. “The Birds of Washington”’ was obscurely published and of necessarily limited circu- lation; and inasmuch as a good deal of its matter was exactly descriptive of conditions obtaining in California, or at least concerned species found in California, it has been unhesitatingly used as a supplementary source-book for ‘‘The Birds of California.” The adaptation of passages has been most conscientiously done (I have a horror of stale stuff), so that the northern flavor thus imparted to ‘‘The Birds of California’? may be deemed to offset in a measure the stigma of residence south of the Tehachipe. The plumage descriptions appearing in this work are based chiefly upon original studies of material in the very adequate collections of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley. To the management of this institution and to its founder and patroness, Miss Alexander, I tender my sincerest thanks for every courtesy. The California Academy of Sciences, of San Francisco, and the Museum of History, Science and Art, in Los Angeles, likewise placed every facility at my disposal, and I only regret the limitations of time which precluded a more extended use of their excellent collections. The order of treatment observed in the following pages is substantially the reverse of that long followed by the American Ornithologists’ Union, and is justifiable princi- pally on the ground that it follows a certain order of interest and convenience. Begin- ning, as it does, with the supposedly highest forms of bird-life, it brings to the fore the most familiar birds, and avoids that rude juxtaposition of the lowest form of one group with the highest of the one above it which has been the confessed weakness of the A. O. U. arrangement. The outlines of classification have been rehearsed in the Table of Contents to each volume, and a brief synopsis of generic, family, and ordinal characters will be found in the Analytical Keys at the end of the work. It has not been thought best to give large place to these matters, nor to intrude them upon the text, both because of the enormous labor involved in a really original digest, and because the more technical character of these investigations would probably interest only a small proportion of our clientele. Several excellent manuals already exist in this field, and to these the more intrepid student is referred. The nomenclature is chiefly that of the A. O. U. Check-List, Third Edition, revised to include more recent supplements. In a few instances attention has been paid to outside suggestions, especially such as would tend to link up some of our Amer- ican species of wide distribution with closely related European or Asiatic forms. I must confess to having followed with a very special bias the opinions of our veteran taxono- + mist, Dr. Joseph Grinnell, and his no less gifted brother-in-law, Mr. Harry Swarth. In some few cases I have differed from these authorities and have disallowed their claims, not as being mistaken in fact, but as being, on occasion, too fine-spun or ethereal for mortal allegiance. Other distinctions, no less finely shaded, I have allowed, for no better reason, perhaps, than inertia or to show esprit de corps, or else to provide a dainty target for a good-natured shaft. Taxonomy is not an exact science, and we are under no bonds to an artificial consistency. Furthermore, it may be as well at the outset to let the student into the secret of our perplexities. We have no wish either to mystify him or to impress him with a show of infallibility. The realm of ornithology, and espe- cially the field of taxonomy, has been much trampled and much shot over, yet there may be rich ore just below the surface, cr even veritable oil domes of truth awaiting release. For subject headings I have selected names applicable to the species as a whole, wherever found, provided two or more races of the species appear on the California list. This will introduce certain names unfamiliar to western eyes, as, for example, ‘‘Solitary Vireo,” instead of ‘‘Cassin Vireo’’; but it will have a salutary effect in stressing the value of the species, and in restraining our tendency to regard geographical races as quasi- species, through the operation of the naming fallacy. Calling the bird a Cassin Vireo should not blind our eyes to the fact that it 7s a Solitary Vireo, only a shade different from the eastern representative of this species. For those cases where only one sub- species is found in California, there seems to be no recourse save to yield a quasi-specific value to the local name. In the case of Zonotrichia gambeli gambeli and Z. g. nuttalli, I have deliberately disregarded the rules, in order to stress the differences between the two races, as well as to exemplify the fact that consistency is impossible where a hard and fast mechanical device, like nomenclature, obscures phylogenetic differences infinitely varied. Considerable care, too, has been taken in the readjustment or reappraising of common names; for experience shows that these may be more enduring than so-called ‘scientific’ names. In some instances I have used one designation in the subject title and another for the same bird in the ‘running title.’’ By placing both before the public it may be possible to establish through usage some ground of preference not now ap- parent. Some names previously in use were misleading and have been frankly discarded; but no departure from custom has been registered save for good reason. In compiling General Ranges, I have been chiefly indebted to the A. O. U. Check- List (3rd Edition), but have supplemented its findings by reference to Ridgway or Bent, or to more explicitly western authorities. In determining the Ranges in Califor- nia, | am under the deepest obligation, by permission, to Dr. Grinnell’s “Distributional List’? (1915), as well as to other pamphlets published by the Cooper Ornithological Club, notably those by Willett, Tyler and Howell. I have also kept accurate notes of all occurrences throughout my own ornithological wanderings, and have thus been able to confirm or to supplement Grinnell’s well-balanced conclusions. In presenting the ‘‘Authorities,’’ I have been fortunate in enlisting the services of Dr. Tracy I. Storer (about 60 paragraphs) and Mr. Harry Swarth, and these gentlemen are responsible for the citations themselves. It was intended at first to offer only “‘first publication,”’ the citation upon which inclusion as a bird of California rested, although it was not always possible to secure even such. But it would have seemed a pity not to vi point the student at the same time to at least the major sources of information, near or remote. Accordingly, leading references, to the limiting number of five or six, have been provided, solely for the benefit of those who wish to carry their studies further. Selections in many instances have had to be quite arbitrary; and in general the more obvious source books, monographs, and special treatises, as well as the more compre- hensive works of reference have been dismissed after a few citations. Continued refer- ence to these approved sources would suggest itself to the student in any event, so our effort has been directed rather to list the more fugitive and likely-to-be-overlooked articles and reports, or else those of more striking regional significance. Readers will remark an insistent odlogical note in these pages. The author has long cherished a notion of the importance of the study of birds’ eggs in seeking to resolve the problems of phylogenetic relationships, and indeed in arriving at some measure of understanding of the nature and methods of life itself. Privileged years have strengthened this conviction and have made clear to him the necessity of further devotion to this task. In January, 1916, with the help of indulgent (but non-pro- fessional) friends, the author established the Museum of Comparative Odlogy in Santa Barbara. This institution cultivated its special field, with distinction, for a number of years, and was, incidentally, of immense service to ‘‘The Birds of California:’’ but, later, when the distinctive character of the institution began to alter, the author with- drew and has since organized a new and purely scientific institution, the International Museum of Comparative Odlogy. The new movement, which proposes to correlate the interests of scientific odlogy throughout the world, boasts a membership in thirty- four of the American States and in more than thirty foreign states and countries, and gives promise, thus, of a considerable usefulness to science. My sincerest thanks are, however, due to the old institution both for its practical support and for its consistent appreciation of the prior claims of the bird-book. But with this hasty review of technical matters we gladly return to a consideration of the bird itself. Poet, legislator, scientist, sportsman, economist, sentimentalist— how shall we get on together? How shall we agree whether to attack, or to cherish, the traditions of bird lore? Who owns the birds? and what are they good for, anyhow? A real principle of unity can be found only when we come to regard the birds’ value to society, that is, to all of us taken together. The question then becomes, not, Is this bird worth more to me in my collection or upon my plate than as a living actor in the drama of life? but, In what capacity can this bird best serve the interests of mankind? There can be no doubt that the answer to the latter question is usually and increasingly, Asaliving bird. Stuffed specimens we need, but only a representative number of them; only a limited few of us are fitted to enjoy the pleasures of the chase, and the objects of our passion are rapidly passing from view anyway; but never while the hearts of men are set on peace, and the minds of men are alert to receive the impressions of the Infinite, will there be too many birds to speak to eye and ear, and to minister to the hidden things of the spirit. The birds belong to the people, not to a clique or a coterie, but to all the people as heirs and stewards of the good things of God. It is of the esthetic value of the bird that we have tried to speak, not alone in our descriptions but in our pictures. The author has a pleasant conviction, born of desire, perhaps, that the bird in art is destined to figure much more largely in future years than heretofore. We have learned something from the Japanese in this regard, but Vil more, perhaps, from the camera, whose revelations have marvelously justified the conventional conclusions of Japanese decorative art. Nature is ever the nursing mother of Art. While our function in the text has necessarily been interpretative, we have preferred in the pictures to let Nature speak for herself, and we have held ourselves and our artists to the strictest accounting for any retouching or modification of photo- graphs. Except, therefore, as explicitly noted, the half-tones from photographs are faithful presentations of life. If they inspire any with a sense of the beauty of things as they are, or suggest to any the theme for some composition, whether on canvas, fresco, vase, or tile, in things as they might be, then our labor will not have been in vain. It affords us deep satisfaction to present 106 color plates from paintings by Major Allan Brooks, for in our opinion this artist is without a peer in the delineation of birds. Major Brooks, although a resident of British Columbia, has pursued extensive studies in California, and was a welcome guest at ‘‘Los Colibris’’ for two winters. We regret not having been able to avail ourselves further of the masterly work of Mr. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, nor of that of Mr. George Miksch Sutton, a younger artist of brilliant promise, although we are glad to present one plate each from these gentlemen. The photographic work of Mr. Donald R. Dickey, of Pasadena, speaks for itself. The author is under the deepest personal obligation to Mr. Dickey for his able and enthusiastic codperation, a service which of itself would have assured the worthy illustration of ‘‘The Birds of California.’’ In like manner, Mr. Wright M. Pierce, of Claremont, has given without stint of the products of his photographic skill, and has set us wishing that he might be persuaded to undertake bird photography as a pro- fession. Mr. William L. Finley, of Oregon, is a well-known star in his own realm, and he has generously spared us a few scintillations. Specific acknowledgement of welcome contributions from other artists, both amateur and professional, is made in connection with the half-tones themselves, and to all these gentlemen we extend our hearty thanks. To the Patrons and Subscribers of this work, as such, the author wishes to express his sincerest thanks. The patience displayed by early subscribers to ‘‘The Birds of California’’ is probably without parallel in publishing history, for the present publishers hold, and honor, orders which were signed in November, 1910. While it is a satis- faction to note that the promises of the early days have been more than redeemed through the enlarged scope and enhanced illustrative equipment of the work itself, it remains true that save for the timely support accorded by people of good will in the old days (when the whole scheme was merely a vision on paper), the work could never have been accomplished. Well said the prophet, Cast your bread upon the waters and after many days it shall return unto you. It is quite impossible for me to express the depth of my gratitude to Miss Ellen B. Scripps, of La Jolla, who has proved herself not only an astute benefactor but a courageous friend. From the time I first showed her some of Brooks’s pictures, back in 1912, the thing I have been living for has appealed to her imagination, and the years of our acquaintance have been marked by spacious courtesies. It is faith like hers which sweetens life and answers our questions as to the compassion of the Infinite. “The Birds of California’ was from its inception a codperative undertaking. Few editorial ventures have ever owed so much to the spirit of good will and to generous “Doosting”’ by disinterested friends. Brother scientists, fellow members of the Cooper Vili Ornithological Club, prominent subscribers, leaders of social activity and of opinion, financiers, government officials, Audubonists, bird-lovers, artists, editors, photog- raphers, collectors, and business associates—all have codperated with most commend- able efficiency to make the production of the work an accomplished fact. It is impossible even to enumerate the scores upon scores of well-wishers who deserve honorable mention. In making, therefore, partial acknowledgement of courtesies and debts of honor to those preéminent in service, I ask the indulgence of others not less generous, if unnamed. To the following ladies and gentlemen and institutions my most grateful acknowledgements are due: To Dr. Joseph Grinnell for sponsorship and every courtesy; to Mr. William E. Colby for faithful and otherwise unrewarded service as President of ‘“‘The Birds of California Publishing Company; to Messrs. Harry Swarth, H. W. Carriger, F. E. Newbury, A. B. Howell, W. Lee Chambers, H. C. Bryant, and D. H. Schauer for services as trustees in that Company; to Messrs. W. Lee Chambers, A. B. Howell, H. W. Carriger, and H. S. Swarth for personal and pro- fessional codperation of the most unfaltering type; to Messrs. Leverett M. Loomis, Frank S. Daggett, Barton W. Evermann, Donald R. Dickey, John Rowley, Harold C. Bryant, Tracy I. Storer, Joseph Dixon, L. E. Wyman, Wright M. Pierce, and Adriaan van Rossem for personal and professional courtesies of every sort; to Messrs. A. G. Vrooman, C. I. Clay, Fred Truesdale, Robert Canterbury, and William O. Dawson for valued assistance afield; and to the following for codperation of every sort, financial, social and personal: Mr. John W. Mailliard, Mr. Joseph Mailliard, Mr. William H. Crocker, Mr. Henry E. Huntington, Miss Annie M. Alexander, Mr. Robert Oxnard, Mr. Rowland G. Hazard, Mr. E. P. Ripley, Dr. David Starr Jordan, Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, Mrs. Elizabeth Grinnell, Mrs. Robert J. Burdette, Miss Mary Foy, Mr. O. W. Howard, Mrs. Harriet Williams Myers, Judge H. W. O'Melveny, Dr. Chas. W. Browning, Mr. A. P. Redington, Mr. H. G. Chase, Mr. George S. Edwards, Mr. Joel Remington Fithian, Mrs. Lora J. Moore Knight, Miss Caroline Hazard, Mr. Reginald Fernald, Mr. Frank M. Selover, Miss Donna J. Youmans, Mr. George O. Knapp, Mr. John B. Henck, Mr. Bernhard Hoffmann, Mr. J. R. Pemberton, Mr. Frank C. Willard, Mr. O. P. Silliman, Mr. W. A. Strong, Mr. George W. Marston, Mr. John G. Howell, Dr. William Frederick Badé, Prof. Charles E. Kofoid, Dr. Ralph Arnold, Mrs. Agnes Allerton, Miss Aurelia S. Harwood, Miss Kate Ellen Walker, Mr. Frank H. Holmes, Mr. John Lewis Childs, Mr. A. C. Bent, Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, Mr. P. B. Philipp, Mr. J. C. Harper, Mr. Curtis Hillyer, and Mr. Joseph M. Burnett. Mr. Frank Stephens, whose name is deeply imbedded in the annals of ornithology in California, has done me the incomparable courtesy of placing his MS copy of a pro- jected ‘‘Birds of California’ at my disposal. I am indebted to it for many citations and for additional light upon desert species which this veteran authority knows better, perhaps, than anyone else. My special thanks are due to Dr. Harold C. Bryant, of Berkeley, who because of his more extended acquaintance with them has prepared several of the articles upon the geese, and to Mr. Griffing Bancroft, of San Diego, who has kindly supplied the account of the Xantus Murrelet. To my wife, Frances, I owe an unpayable debt of gratitude for unsparing devotion through the years to the task of manuscript preparation and revision, and, latterly, ise for assistance in press supervision. Only Mrs. Dawson's defiant modesty precludes the appearance of her name with mine upon the title-page, for though she disclaims anexact knowledge of birds (the dear lady still asks ‘‘ Now was that the Bewick Wren?’’— when the Titmouse yodels), she really knows about all there is to know of the making of bird-books, and as for grammatical distinctions I am putty in her hands. The reader perceives our common good fortune. To Miss Fedora E. D. Brown the author is indebted for artistic codperation in the handling of prints, and to Mrs. Cornelia N. Shup for unusually able assistance in proof- reading. Mr. Ray Bradfish is chiefly responsible for the art work upon the half-tones and for the designing of the bindings. His capable codperation is deeply appreciated. No publication, I believe. has ever enlisted a more competent and devoted alle- giance of the printing trades and of their trained workers. The very office boys have wrought on this work for the glory of accomplishment. My thanks are due to the several firms which executed the project and to their always courteous managers. In especial, whatever credit of workmanly finish is accruing for the physical volumes is due to A. R. Warren, foreman of composition, Carl Seybold, ‘“‘lock-up man,"’ James Butters, foreman of color engraving, Mickey Ferguson, press foreman, John Griesinger, binding supervisor, and John Cairncross, to whom was entrusted the delicate task of “chopping up”’ half a million dollars’ worth of printed forms into the single sheets required by our revolutionary system of binding. These have been the real ‘‘captains of industry,’ and their troops have been, without exception, both skilled and loyal. It is the valued privilege of one who promotes the circulation of a subscription work to establish a more or less personal relation with his subscribers. In view of this may I be permitted to speak a direct and concluding word regarding the work itself and regarding the future of the science in California? ‘‘The Birds of California” is more elaborately conceived than any previous work upon birds in America. It will no doubt disclose the lapses and omissions incident to so complex an undertaking. Will the reader feel free to point these out, with any other suggestions which may occur to him, with a view to future improvement? Such improvement could only be possible upon the basis of continued and thoroughgoing coéperation. It is hoped, therefore, that the publication of ‘‘The Birds of California’? may quicken and focalize interest in the birds of our most favored State, to the end that our knowledge of them may be- come more accurate and more extended, that our materials for bird portraiture may be more complete and more satisfying, and that the emphasis of our interest may be shifted once and for all from slaughter to appreciation. The author, therefore, invites all those who are seriously minded to realize these ends, to codperate with him in the development and in the defense of all the interests which are dear to the science and to the art and to the understanding of BIRDS. WILLIAM LEON DAWSON. Santa Barbara, November toth, 1923. Contents of Volume | PAGE ID SIDI G/NTOUORNES ia state 9. ches al aumaoeetocer el ea aad ema se oR ENE nRSRe Guan Cneas Anes Ree een i IGE GISDE ROE SUBSCRIBER Sips peer fore eas ace Me aciacirs ys aes sac Insert | PTRUSIRYA (Clay rode sas arsine a cede Fee aca erst eRe ate ATOR SRS ert Se etre ee GEN i ill PAB DEFOE. CONTENTS Geese ee LAL oaths anal Uae loam SER Ses Si, Xi LETS ORME WIC sPAC Ta BATES ua. been aera ee Potter aun cad Mier eee eer eee te XV JED aeA LINING NANO vciig Guorks t,he euchsenatereac a ansliud: some ile ral ets. Hcl Or eave cleo ae XVil DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES NOs. 1-102 Order Passeres—Perching Birds. Family Corvide—Crows and Jays. i Ine IREweM, CORIUS COTO? SHWUGWS. ococccdkascceadaccccocone: I 2 The Western Crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos hesperis........... 3. The Clark Nutcracker, Nucifraga columbiana................ 23 4 The Pinyon Jay, Cyanocephalus cyanocephalus............... 28 5 The Black-billed Magpie, Pica pica hudsonia................ 6m wihenVellowebillediMagprewe2ica, nuttin ee 38 7 The California Jays, Aphelocoma californica................. 44 8) he Santa Cruz Jay4 Aphelocoma imsularts, 0... 9s25- 5552 6- 58 9g The Woodhouse Jay, Aphelocoma woodhousei................ 63 1© ne Staller laws, CMnmocwHe HONG Bess ckcoecenncccesvccencos 65 ii “We Gin ass, PAHSOROUS OOSCUTUSs soscscs000s0cecceecsccce 70 Family Icteride—Troupials, American Starlings. 12 ‘Whe Cowwloirls, MWOOHU7US GHGs .cdsne0d50000550a05o6s0000n06 75 13 The Rusty Blackbird, Euphagus carolinus................... 8I 14 The Brewer Blackbirds, Euphagus cyanocephalus............. 83 15 The Arizona Hooded Oriole, Icterus cucullatus nelsont......... 89 76 ‘Whe Scottie OnOle, LGGHDS POPISOWM > s2onc0do5e000eb0b0scnccs 93 i7 Wine Bulloek Onole, MAGUS WOWOG2..2220.500000600n55000054 97 18 Whe Dricolored Redwing, Agelatus tricolor..................- 104 19 The Red-winged Blackbirds, A gelatus pheniceus............. I14 20 The Yellow-headed Blackbird, Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus. 12 21 The Western Meadowlark, Sturnella neglecta................. 129 aD Wine Bolom, DOA vOMMEe OP NEIUOHUS. 20650000500 0cccesecece 136 Family Fringillide—Sparrows. The California Evening Grosbeak, Hesperiphona vespertina COVEN OVIVEC CW oe eM arse patay ne ek eh coca eae ea a sites RediGrossbillsWoxa Gurvinostnd wt oe eee The California Pine Grosbeak, Pinicola enucleator californica. . The Sierra Nevada Rosy Finch, Leucosticte tephrocotis dawsoni The Common Redpoll, Acanthis linaria linaria.............. Wine IPinS Sielatny; SOKOOS PUPUSsccagechocadpacaciaecsacnanece The Willow Goldfinch, Astragalinus tristis salicamans. . The Green-backed Goldfinch, Astragalinus psaltria hesperophi: LES Pao ema RD en eSaroNE Mea ig Ai Minds, eRe ad Ube) aS a The Cassin Purple Finch, Carpodacus cassini................ The California Purple Finch, Carpodacus purpureus californi- The California Linnet, Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis.. . hesEnelishsS parrowny Lassen domesticus... se Ae ene The Alaska Longspur, Calcarius lapponicus alascensis The Chestnut-collared Longspur, Calcarius ornatus The Lark Bunting, Calamospiza melanocorys................. The Western Lark Sparrow, Chondestes grammacus strigatus.. . The Vesper Sparrows, Powcetes gramineus................... The Savanna Sparrows, Passerculus sandwichensis............ The Belding Marsh Sparrow, Passerculus beldingt............ The Large-billed Sparrows, Passerculus rostratus............. The Western Grasshopper Sparrow, Ammodramus savannarum DUMMOCULALUS Re ern tae Renee ES pons Sere a eee ee The Nelson Sparrow, Ammospiza caudacutg nelsont........... The Rufous-crowned Sparrow, Aimophila ruficeps ruficeps.... . The Desert Sparrow, Amphispiza bilineata deserticola......... ijhe,Bell/Sparnowa Amphispiza bella ee ees The Sage Sparrows, Amphispiza nevadensis.................. dihe;Slate-colored Jiunco; Juncohyemalis, .0.0 iene Tne Oreexorny |fwincnss, MWe O7PTHIUS sc obocassoovouvepobooce The Gray-headed Junco, Junco caniceps. ....-............4. The Western Tree Sparrow, Spizella arborea ochracea......... The Western Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina arizon@... . The Black-chinned Sparrow, Spizella atrogularis The Brewer Sparrow, Spizella brewert..............4....--5- shhetHanris'Sparnow)Zonoachia querula sola e a The Golden-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia coronata........... Xi PAGE The White-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys.......... 319 The Gambel Sparrow, Zonotrichia gambeli gambeli............ 326 The Nuttall Sparrow, Zonotrichia gambeli nuttalli.......... 331 The White-throated Sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis........... 335 The Song Sparrows, Melospiza melodia...................... Bae The Lincoln Sparrows, Melospiza lincolmt................... 359 The Swamp Sparrow, Melospiza georgiana................... 365 dihegkox Sparrows waa sscne! land 70 ca eee ee 365 The Green-tailed Towhee, Oberholseria chlorura.............. 386 ihe Spotted Mowheeswe7piloymaculati swan 390 Mae Aoert Wonnes, Pe DWO @OGB.ncccccoccccdnopoopotosecoe 3907 ihhesBrownwliowhees wei pilolcrissalisae ae eee 401 ihewazule Bunting Rassennaamenay see eee 409 The Beautiful Bunting, Passerina versicolor pulchra........... 412 ithessiiwelGrosbeakswGui7acatceruleap nner 413 The Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Hedymeles ludovicianus......... 417 The Black-headed Grosbeaks, Hedymeles melanocephalus...... 419 Family Tanagride—Tanagers. shhrerSumimenshanacersweinavear,uor anes ae eee ae 428 Dhe Western Danager, Piranga ludoviciana..:............... 431 Family Mnzotiltide—Wood Warblers. The Black-and-white Warbler, Myzotilta varia............... 437 The Tennessee Warbler, Vermivora peregrina................ 440 The Orange-crowned Warblers, Vermivora celata............. 442 The Calaveras Warbler, Vermivora ruficapilla gutturalis....... 451 Wine Ine Weamollers, Wa7ewOn@ VYWCHEs o.0062060c06s000050000¢ 455 The Virginia Warbler, Vermivora virginie................... 459 sihemYellowaN\Vanblers DY end no1cateSiiUd = are eee 460 The Magnolia Warbler, Dendroica magnolia................. 466 The Black-throated Blue Warbler, Dendroica cerulescens ceru- WES COTS 2p eer nr Mayra a eae oR Rene eee Ro ee 468 The Alaska Myrtle Warbler, Dendoica coronata hoovert........ 469 The Audubon Warbler, Dendroica audubont audubont......... 472 The Black-throated Gray Warbler, Dendroica nigrescens...... 479 The Townsend Warbler, Dendroica townsendi................ 484 The Black-throated Green Warbler, Dendroica virens......... 488 The Hermit Warbler, Dendroica occidentalis................: 490 The Chestnut-sided Warbler, Dendroica pensylvanica......... 495 The Palm Warbler, Dendroica palmarum palmarum........... 496 102 XIV The Tolmie Warbler, Oporornis tolmtet..................... ihheOven-bird:Sevnusaunocapulus: elena oe ae The Louisiana Water-thrush, Securus motacilla. ee The Alaska Water-thrush, Sezurus noveboracensis s notabilis. oe The Yellow-throats, Geothly pis EFLEN GSAS tera es en ary PAT eer The Western Chat, Icteria virens longicauda................ The Wilson Warblers, Wilsonia pusilla.............0...... The American Redstart, Setophaga ruticilla................. Family Hirundinide—Swallows. The Western Martin, Progne subis hesperta:................ List of Full-page Plates FACING PAGE SCOMMST ORIOLES (Color plate) paren ree eee Frontispiece BInvoNal Ava (olor plates peeasecr pecbe tes ier wu eea eins cae ene ee 28 AN NOIR? IPOS GDUOUINS) Ea tdacces deacce cbcmototouosneonoo cat 24 WMEPLOWABIEED DE VIAGPins (Color plate) seems sae ae: 38 CATTHORN TAM Awval (Color plate) i qeane sa tee en eine ee 44 CALIFORNIA JAY ROBBING A BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK’S NEST (Bl oto Saraiva’) aes nears neiees coor slant ee once Reanim? aN 50 NEOTEL OWE MME x CU OL OME) renee ta es ECC ele te een ar nee 58 CADIFORNIEAWBIRD Sw cess(Colorplate) haa eee ee ener 62 BILGSINRONIID) Aw (Color oe). ccoccoasoseaduasacovccecccxdes 68 AVELIGHD OF BREWER BLACKBIRDS (Duotone). ..7...7...--...--- 84 INRIZONA LOODEDIORTOWER (Colorplate) hansen Iori go BUEEOCmS ORTOLE| (Color plate) waaaae eer ee eee 98 A TRICOLORED REDWING, FEMALE (Photogravure)............... 104 BICOLOREDENEDWiNGH (Colorplate) Roar ae arene 114 YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD (Color-plate)....................-- 12 Wisin MisAnonmARx (Coloma), ..5scccnccaccvcsocvunous- 128 Nest AND EGGs OF WESTERN MEADOWLARK (Photogravure)...... 132 WESTERN EVENING GROSBEAK (Color-plate)..................... 140 SIERRA Nrvapa Rosy Fincw (Color-plate)...................... 156 KEARSARGE LAKES AND PINNACLES (Photogravure).............. 160 hE eR UCOLUCEIEES: (DUOtOMe is a Mutter eas aI on oe oe oe 166 GREEN-BACKED GOEDHRINGH (Color-plate))).5...25..--25-52-.24- 190 IPAWRENCE.S) GOLDEINGHES: (Color-plate) a9. ee se. oe eae 198 CassINn’s PURPLE FINCH, FEMALE ON Nest (Duotone)............ 204 CASSIN AND CALIFORNIA PURPLE FINCHES (Color-plate).......... 208 CATTEORNTIAGDINNE Ts (Colox- plate) rere ees eae eee 212 \VESTPRINGCARKE SPARROW (Color plate) rece seers eee eee 234 STUPING Mes Cex (DUONG). 22556008 00en000 ds ocegus0ac00c 238 NVARSH SPARROWs GROUP (Colorplate)e ee a eee eee eee oe 248 PORTRAIT OF LARGE-BILLED SPARROW (Duotone)................. 260 WESTERN GRASSHOPPER SPARROW AT NEsT (Duotone)............ 264 RUFOUS-CROWNED SPARROW (Color-plate)......................-. 268 DESERT BLACK-THROATED SPARROW ON NEST (Duotone).......... 274 THE ALABAMA HILLS AND THE HIGH SIERRAS (Duotone).......... 276 SAGHISOPARROWA GROUP (Colon plate) eer eee e200 FACING PAGE STERRAG UNCOn(Color=plaite)ateratiaiassc eae ayae nee 5 AO A WARM DAY IN THE YOSEMITE (Duotone))......-..:....4505--5: 302 GAMBEL;S SPARROW, ON LOG (Ductone)), 4... 054450670) oe on oe 330 SONG SPARROW! GROWER (Color-plate)emems nc oe sane ee eee 344 IETINCOENGSISEARR OWa(Colorplate)\pe nee ee ee ee 358 ILINICOLIS CAMERA (IP nono). conn cs soecousboodaensoos 364 AGSELECTION- OF OX SPARROWS) (Color-plate)ian. 9.5. 44,0e se aaee 366 SLATE-COLORED SPARROW AT NEsT (Photogravure)............... 374 ECREEN- TAILED OWwHEEN(Color-plate): an gee. 4 eae oe ee 386 N/JESAND DIE GCOMLOWHEE (Duotone). 5 vee ye meen moar eee 394 ABERTMSMOWHER (Colorplate)) sce Gece i coe ee eke 398 IFAZUEIE BUNTING (Colorplate)ian wei ascent eee 410 \WiESTERN BLUE GROSBEAI (Colorsplate);. ..: oa eee 414 BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK FEEDING YOUNG (Duotone)........... 418 CooPpER AND WESTERN TANAGERS (Color-plate).................. 430 GROUP OF CALIFORNIA WARBLERS (Color-plate)................. 442 DUSKVvANVAR BEERS (Color plate) miners arte ot eine ene eye ae 446 NEST AND EGGs or Dusky WARBLER (Photogravure)............. 450 AN IRVOTEGCIIO) INSNAGLOING (IPANOHOAENWKE)) se ok oe bine colo eb onc oon boo whet 468 ENO DUWBONCSINVARBEPRa(Color-plate)iaans sam) onions ete ia ee 472 OLANCHA PEAK AND THE COTTONWOOD LAKES (Duotone)......... 474 LOWNSEND!S \WARBUER:(Color-plate)mia. 9404 ae os eee ee 484 ER MITNVARBEERS (Colorplate)h eee ac ee eee 490 Mommy shVVARBEER (Color plate) anu seer amet ee Neem 496 AAS \VATER-RHRUSH (Colorplate) ss. . 250s eee 502 hUPE MEL LOW-nHROAT (Color plate) yess tea ene 506 CompENMWARBEERT(Colorplate) ear wet eset eerie onan 514 XVI Explanatory TABLE OF COMPARISONS Millimeters Inches Fay Sve SIZ Cp ete ore A Reet ae IE Length up to 127 5.00 WV GIAO? SAO os cioos dtl bee oa > eo ane WD = 152A) 5.00— 6.00 SPAnnOWASIZen aan ands eae Lr 152.4- 190.5 6.00— 7.50 MO wileebsiz CF wea tes erie esa th erence 190.5— 228.6 7.50- 9.00 IRON GWS.osccvcccursodoucscvoce ZAS.6=— BONS g .00-12.00 Little Hawk size, Teal size, Tern size 304.8- 406.4 12.00-16.00 GrowasrZely a aeiene neon ee hee 406.4— 558.5 16.00-22.00 GullitcizeBrantisizene sarees ee 558.5- 762 22 .00-30.00 Eagle size, Goose size.............. 762 -—1066.8 30 .00—42 . 00 (GHANE GUS: Bee Hae ee Ha EE 1066.8 and upward Measurements are given in millimeters and in inches, the latter enclosed in parentheses. XV1l The Birds of California No. 1 Raven A. O. U. No. 486. Corvus corax sinuatus Wagler. Synonyms.—WESTERN RAVEN. MEXICAN RAVEN. AMERICAN RAVEN. Description.—Color, uniform lustrous black; plumage, especially on breast, scapulars, and back, showing steel-blue and violet, or purplish, iridescence; feathers of the throat long, narrow, pointed, light gray basally; primaries whitening at base. Bill and feet black; iris brown. Length, two feet or over; female a little smaller; wing 406-457 (16.00-18.00); tail 233 (9.17); bill 65-80 (2.56-3.15); depth of bill at nostril 25.4 (1.00); tarsus 68 (2.68). Recognition Marks.—Large size,—more than twice the bulk of a Crow; long, rounded tail; harsh croaking notes; uniform black coloration. Nesting.— Nest: a mass of sticks deeply hollowed and lined with wool or hair plucked from carcasses; placed in cranny of cliff or ledge, or, rarely, in trees. Eggs: 4-7, light bluish green (lichen-green), spotted and marked or blotched (rarely streaked longitudinally) with olive or dark olive (or with deep olive and citrine drab dilutions) and, rarely or sparingly, with vinaceous gray. Specimens vary from those nearly immaculate to those nearly buried under pigment; but they average lighter than Crows’ in respect to quantity of pigment. Av. of 56 eggs in the collections of the Museum of Comparative Oology, taken in San Luis Obispo County, 47.5 x 32-3 (1.87 x 1.27); index 67.9. Range 41.7-55.8 (1.64-2.18) x 28.5-34.5 (1.12-1.36); indices 59-76. Av. of 42 eggs in M. C. O. colls. taken on Santa Cruz Island, 48.5 x 32 (1.91 x 1.26); index 66. Range 45.5-56.6 (1.79-2.23) x 29.7-34 (1.17-1.34); indices 57-71. Season: April, one brood. Range of Corvus corax.—North America, Europe, northern and central Asia. Range of C. c. sinuatus——The western United States except the Northwest Coast district, south to Central America. Range in California.—Resident but wide ranging, hence, of casual occurrence nearly throughout the State; common or abundant locally. The chief centers of distribution are the semi-arid interior coast ranges of south-central California, the larger islands, and the northwestern humid coastal strip. Rare or wanting in the high Sierras and almost disappearing from the more thickly settled regions. The Raven Authorities.—Gambel (Corvus cacalotl), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. iii., 1847, p. 203; Heermann, Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. x., pt. vi., 1859, p. 54 (habits); Linton, Bull. Cooper Orn. Club, vol. i., 1899, pp. 68-69 (nest and eggs); Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 68 (status in s. Calif.; crit.); Dawson, Condor, vol. XViil., 1916, p. 28 (status in Calif.); Howell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 12, 1917, pp. 69-71 (crit.; meas.; nesting habits on coastal islands). IN THE Raven we behold not alone the ranking member of the order Passeres, but the most highly developed of birds. Quick-witted, cunning, and audacious, this fowl of sinister aspect has been invested by peoples in all ages with a mysterious and semi-sacred character. His ominous croakings were thought to have prophetic import, while his preternatural shrewdness has made him, with many, a symbol of divine knowledge. Primitive man, especially, felt the spell of his somber pres- ence, and the Raven was as deeply imbedded in the folklore of the mari- time Grecian tribes and of the hardy Norsemen, as he is today in that of the Haida Indians of Alaska or the Zuni of New Mexico. That our own Indians held the Raven in the highest reverence is evidenced by the following curious fragment, attributed to Father Tor- quemada.! The place is ‘‘the island of St. Catherine’’ [now Santa Cruz Island?], and the time about the middle of the Eighteenth Century. The Spaniards are visiting a heathen temple on the then populous island, where birds are sacrificed in great numbers to ‘‘some devil.’’ ‘Tt happened that when the foldiers came to fee this temple, they found within the faid circle, two crows, confiderably larger than ordinary, which at the approach of the Spaniards flew away, but alighted among the rocks in the neighborhood. The foldiers feeing them of fuch uncommon fize, fired their guns and killed them. At this, an Indian, who had attended the Spaniards as a guide, fell into an agony. I was informed that they believed the devil fpoke to them in thefe crows, and thence held them in great veneration. Sometime after, one of the foldiers going that way, faw fome Indian women wafhing fifh on the shore, but fome crows came up to them, and with their beaks, took the fifh from their hands, whilst they observed a profound filence, not daring fo much as to look at them much lefs frighten them away. Nothing therefore could feem more horrible to the Californians, than that the Spaniards fhould fhoot at thefe refpectable birds.’’ Although confined now to the wilderness and the waste places, where his persistent misconduct has exiled him, the Raven is still in a sense the dominant bird of the Northern Hemisphere. No other bird, unless it be the regal falcon, successfully disputes his sway; and wherever 1By John Trusler in ‘‘The Habitable World Described,” pub. 1788-1795. Se2 Daggett in “‘The Condor,"’ vol. X p. 135-137, July, 1918. 2 The Raven he deigns to dwell he becomes the bete noir, the sable satanic ruler, of the bird-world. In man alone has the Raven met his match; and the story of the eternal conflict between man, the supreme of the mammalian line, and Carava, the dusky apex of the avian succession, if it could be told. would afford some of the most thrilling chapters in the history of animal psychology. Taken in Kern County Photo by the Author THE RAVEN’S FIEF The ancient occupation of the earth by this sable master is evidenced in part by the geographical races, some twenty in number, into which the virtually uniform and really implastic species, Corvus corax, has been divided. The differences recognized are chiefly those of size and of the relative proportions of beak and claw, according as the environ- ment of the bird has made greater or less demands upon its hardihood and prowess. A host of the Raven’s lesser brethren, crows and choughs and rooks, and what not, occupy pretty much the same territory, and they extend the corvine domain well over the southern hemisphere, save that no member of the genus is to be found in South America. In California, as elsewhere, southern examples of the Raven evince a ten- 3} The Raven dency to diminution of size, especially in case of the languid birds of the Santa Barbara Islands.! In appearance the Raven presents several points of difference from the Western Crow, with which it is popularly confused. The Raven is not only larger, but its tail is relatively much longer, and the end of it is fully rounded. The head, too, is fuller, and the bill proportionately stouter, with a more rounded culmen. The feathers of the neck are more loosely arranged, resulting in an impressive shagginess; and there is a sort of primitive uncouthness about the entire appearance of these ancient birds, quite in contrast with the unctuous sleekness of the dapper crows. Not even the Crow is fastidious in diet, but the Raven indulges propensities of appetite which have justly marked him an outlaw. Fre- quenting, as he does, the waste places of the earth, there are two situa- tions, or ranges, which the Raven especially affects, the rugged portions of the seacoast and the cattle ranges of the interior (now, alas! largely transformed into sheep ranges). In the former situation the Raven subsists upon insects, shell-fish, and cast-up offal, together with those main staples of spring and summer, the eggs and young of birds. On the cattle ranges carrion becomes the staple of diet, or, in default of this, the birds eat insects, frogs, lizards, and to some extent, no doubt, the smaller mammals. The eggs and young of all ground-nesting and cliff- haunting birds are diligently sought for. The lake borders and interior marshes throughout the State suffer from the daily depredation of these patient marauders. In the pursuit of their nefarious trade the Ravens will endure almost any punishment of beak or claw, and the only limit to the mischief wrought would appear to be the corvine capacity. Much stress has been laid elsewhere upon the destruction by Ravens of young and sickly stock—calves, lambs and pigs. There is little complaint of this in California. Whether the birds are better fed or better bred, | am unable to say. But at that, I have no doubt that in time of famine the exit of dying animals is often hastened by greedy Ravens. Whether dead or only dying, the victim may expect the first determined attack upon the eyes, for these the ghouls regard as their choicest perquisites. Poultry is sometimes laid under tribute, and iso- lated chicken ranches may suffer severely through the loss of young chickens. On the other hand, some Ravens appear to realize that they are being put upon their good behavior. Bendire records instances where they have shared commons with the chickens without offering them any indignity. Faeries Donation hecion enna thioesaad anilestaraya cocci ile eet se atmucity a JAG tummattectel ecm noeLi ae out of the window of Caire’s slaughter house on Santa Cruz Island, I have seen some ‘‘sockdollagers,"* which I would match against principalis himself. (Vide Ridgway, Birds of N. & M. Am. vol. II. p. 265. Also cf. Bishop, ‘‘Condor,”’ XVII., No. 5, Oct. 10, 1915, p. 186.) 4 THE NORTHERN RAVEN Nn The Raven That Ravens display great sagacity in their quest of food is well known. Once in the Cholame country I lugged my photographic appar- atus for a mile under a grilling sun to photograph a Killdeer’s nest with four eggs, which I had located on the previous day. Only a little spilled yolk and empty shells remained. Then I recalled having seen, on the occasion of my former visit, a pair of Ravens circling high overhead, at least a quarter of a mile away. The birds could not possibly have seen the Killdeer’s eggs at that range; but they heard the distress cries of the Killdeer, and they knew that there was something doing in their line. And at that, the crafty Ravens had retired until the coast should be entirely clear. ‘‘We never forget,’’ is the motto of Pinkerton Raven. Many observers testify that Ravens will take unopened clams to a con- siderable height and let them fall upon the rocks in order to smash them open. Beebe! tells of a Raven in South Africa which, upon discovering an exposed ostrich nest, will hurry off for a stone, and returning, will drop it accurately from such a height that a feast of ostrich egg souffle is immediately assured. As Bendire testifies,2 ‘‘Ravens are stately and rather sedate-looking birds. * Ss * On the ground their movements are de- liberate and dignified; their walk is graceful and seldom varied by hurried hops or jumps. They appear to still better advantage on the wing, especially in winter and early spring, when pairs may frequently be seen playing with each other, performing extraordinary feats in the air, such as somersaults, trying to fly on their backs, etc. At this season they seem to enjoy life most and to give vent to their usually not very ex- uberant spirits by a series of low chuckling and gurgling notes, evidently indifferent efforts at singing.’’ In my experience these springtime excesses are oftenest displayed in company. As is well known, the Raven remains mated for life. The companionship of his mate is quite sufficient for him, and the Raven usually shuns the society of his fellows. But in early springtime it is different. The social instinct overcomes both sexes alike. Besides that, vows must be redeclared, even though accep- tance be assured. And how could the dutiful wife know that her hubby was keeping up with the procession unless he proved himself out in the lists annually, doing stunts with the other fellows? Anyhow, the court of Venus is set up every year in the neighborhood of some beetling sea- cliff, or before some huge monument of sandstone in the cattle country. One who has been privileged to see a Raven circus in session feels as though he had caught the Olympians at a backyard frolic. Dignity is thrown to the winds, and sable seigneurs don cap and bells, while prim \The Bird’’ by William Beebe; p. 158. 2“Life Histories of N. A. Birds,’’ ad. loc. 6 The Raven ladies do aerial skirt dances amid the debris of metaphorical champagne bottles. One such Mardi Gras I witnessed on the 18th of February, 1913. The rendezvous was the picturesque sandstone knob near Chatsworth. Ravens to the number of thirty-three joined the merry rout, and I watched their performances, a breathless Tam o’ Shanter, for as much as two Taken in Los Angeles County Photo by the Author THE SPRING RENDEZVOUS NEAR CHATSWORTH hours. What to the naked eye would have passed as rather meaningless evolutions, stood revealed under the eight-power binoculars as most superb aerial tactics. Stalls and nose-dives and Immelmann turns were interspersed with friendly bouts, mock chases, and figure flights by twos and threes. Outlandishness was part of the game; and a favorite stunt consisted of falling slowly with uplifted wings and legs down-stretched to their ridiculous utmost. Others tumbled as though they had been set spinning by some heavenly catapult; while others still engaged in spirited fisticuffs—all in a friendly spirit, apparently—whose intricacies of evolu- tion are still beyond our returned heroes of the Western Front. A pair of Red-tailed Hawks, who claimed rightful ownership of this same ledge, were set upon playfully, or with great show of bravado. Usually two Ravens would join in the pursuit of a single Redtail. But the hawk took their attentions indulgently, much as a college president might a bevy 7 The Raven of hilarious freshmen. And ever and anon came the deep hunger oope cry, interspersed with many sharp, crow-like caws. One mellow note, which might have been purely individual, reminded me strikingly of the callnote of the Sandhill Crane. Best of all was the game of tag [No, this is not nature-faking; I had Taken in Los Angeles County Photo by the Author RAVENS AT PLAY 8-power binoculars]. One bird appeared with a yellow something in his talons; it might have been cheese, but probably it wasn’t. The owner did not seem to want to eat it, for he courted pursuit by coming back ever and again close to the appointed tag-post. Finally, another bird did succeed in getting ‘‘it’’ away from him, though whether it was snatched from below or peacefully surrendered, I could not tell. At any rate, the new possessor was much more skilled than the old one, and he ventured a succession of acrobatic feats with his bauble. First he would drop it from his beak, and seize it with his claws the next instant. After carrying the object about in his claws for a while, he would reach under and seize it in his beak again—and all this time some other bird & The Raven was making frantic efforts to get it away from him. Finally, in a scrimmage the ball was dropped and, though several birds dived after it, when it became evident that it would reach the ground first, no further effort was made to regain it. After this I witnessed an aerial minuet by two gifted performers,—a tumbling con- test, wherein touching hands (wing-tips), with one bird upside down, was varied with simultaneous somersaults and graceful up- right, or stalling, presentations. Altogether it was a sight for the gods, and it gave one a new opinion of these erstwhile sullen and funereal bird-people. Concerning the notes of the Raven, it is quite certain that a volume might be written; for this most intelligent bird succeeds in com- municating his emotions very fully, at least to his mate. Yet for all the centuries of association, no discriminating ear has se- riously analyzed the Raven’s notes; or if so, : no record has been left. Nor does the author ow : ee feel competent to carry the attempt beyond the most casual sketch. Cvroak is the imi- tative word used oftenest to characterize the note of the Raven; but perhaps kraw would hit it more nearly. The note is, however, of great individual variety, whether Photo by the Author uttered singly or in twos or threes, in ac- Ee cee voi roe EON cordance with the degree of emotion pres- ent in the bird; thus: krawk, or quawk quawk, or hawk hawk hawk. On any reckoning, it is a sonorous and gruesome sound — almost majestic. Any of these notes, by the way, may be easily recalled to memory (though not, of course reproduced in volume) by a snoring sound accomplished on an intaken breath. The notes themselves may, therefore, be properly described as stertorous. For song, the Raven offers a curious, mellow, hunger -o’ope, accompanied by an earnest bobbing of the foreparts. This utterance is closely imi- tated, or exactly parallelled, by the Crow (C. brachyrhynchos); and to my mind is, in turn, associated with the delar’y cry of the Eastern Bluejay (Cyanocitta cristata). In other words, it is of familiar rather than merely 9 The Raven individual significance. Look’ loott, look’ looit is another phrase I have often heard from birds under surveillance, but its precise meaning I never could make out. An alarm note used by a leader on the rare occasions of assembly is co co cawk’, and this is promptly caught up and re- peated by certain others, as though it were an order given by a colonel. Lastly, there is the low kut'ty kut'ty, or chut’to chut’to,a sound of deep disgust, possibly profane, with which a sitting bird quits her nest, upon discovery. Of the nesting of the Raven a separate volume might be written, a romance of the wilderness. For, as the Raven’s croak is the authentic voice of the wilderness, so is his nest its rightful citadel. To be sure, the pressure of civilization has brought the proud bird to some sorry passes. An observer in Utah! tells of a pair of Ravens which nested on a railroad bridge; and I once found a nest in a deserted barn. This last, by the way, was of special in- terest because of a generous juse of beef-ribs Photo by the Author in the substructure. But cliffs are the Raven’s REGARDANT proper home, and the further removed these are from the madding crowd, the better she likes it. In seeking out the wild canyons and the ‘‘breaks’’ of semi-arid foothill ranges, the Raven finds himself, willy nilly, in close association with the Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus). This association must be the result of more than accident, for in a wide country I have found nests of more than a dozen paired couples, Falcons and Ravens, each placed within a few rods, or within a quarter of a mile at most, of the nest of the complementary species, and that although intervening canyons galore went unoccupied. On the whole, I am inclined to think the Prairie Falcon the offender. Coveting the more watchful guardianship of the Raven, the Falcon waits until the Ravens have indicated their choice of a nesting site for the season, and then heaves to in a neighboring cranny. (Guarded by the trusty black sentinel, who never allows a stranger to approach his own nest unwarned, the Falcon despatches her chuckling mate to distant pastures, and puts her mind at ease as she settles to her eggs. The Raven is true to his trust, but he cannot, of course, repel the 1H. C. Johnson, ‘‘Condor,’’ Vol. 1, p. 72. IO Tipaee The Raven invading oologist. Perhaps this is why the unreasoning Falcon some- times falls upon her neighbor Ravens so unmercifully when her own nest is threatened. Nowhere else in the bird-world have I seen such spirited encounters, or any where character shone out so clearly as in those between Hawk and Raven. One such I recall in particular. Hav- ing found a Raven’s nest commanded by a facing bank, I planted myself opposite for photographic purposes. Warned by her mate, the sitting bird had stolen from her nest unseen, and the pair of them had been playing hide-and-seek with me ever since. Now and again one of them would sail over the hilltop, glance downward, and circle back. Or, again, I would descry them both down the valley, wheeling majestically, as is their wont, in paired flight, with stiff parallel wings, their bodies being mantained at a distance of about two feet. Their hearts were in the nest, no doubt, but their visible anxieties were greatly restrained by the petulant dashes of a Prairie Falcon who, some six numbers up the narrow canyon street, was dreading the hour of her own visitation. As often as the Ravens did venture near, the Falcon fell upon one or the other of them with raucous voice and eyes ablaze. In the rout which followed, the terror of the sable birds was evidenced not alone by the celerity of the pursued one, but by the distress cries of its anxious mate. As for the chasee, he (or she) never had time to ‘‘holler.’’ I tried desperately to get a snapshot of one of these encounters, but the scene of battle shifted so rapidly, or was so often carried below the horizon line, that it proved quite baffling. Once I did press the button at close range, but that time the onslaught was so terrible that the birds passed off the plate in about one ten- thousandth of a second, and they swept by within twenty feet of me Taken in San Luis Obispo County with a noise like ripping canvas. Faiatin bm the Dotiar But at that I never saw a Raven A SHORT SCRAMBLE hurt! For the Raven is not only FRED TRUESDALE ON DUTY TEL The Raven Taken in San Luis Obispo County Photo by the Author A LONG HAUL THE NEST APPEARS ABOUT MIDWAY OF THE CRANNY passed master of the art of flying, but he is an ace of aces for coolness. At the critical moment, by a dexterous side flip, too subtle for explanation, he always manages to avoid the fatal stroke. It is the supreme test of skill, and it is doubtful if any other bird could meet it. Lacking weapons of defense, such as, for example, the Redtail possesses in his big talons, it is no joke to meet an angry Falcon in midair. Our hero is playing with death, and he knows it. A typical nest of the Raven is placed midway of some rock ledge, unapproachable save by rope either from above or below. If the recess in the wall is not shaped just to convenience, it must be filled level with crisscrossed sticks lodged at haphazard against the cranny’s sides. In the top a relatively deep hollow is fashioned, and this bowl is lined with every soft substance available, basally with roots and shredded bark, interiorly and very bulkily with animal coverings, chiefly those reft from carcasses—horsehair and cowhair with hide adhering, or wool in great masses. Strips of cloth gleaned from deserted camps, tattered canvas, I2 The Raven frayed rope-ends, anything, no matter how filthy, which promises elas- ticity, is pressed into service. The result is unsanitary and highly offen- sive to the nostrils; and as if this were not enough, the sitting bird drenches the whole recklessly with its own excrement, making of it a veritable abode of harpies. Eggs to the number of five or six, rarely seven, are deposited, and these are singularly frail as to shell structure. Many eggs are dented, either by rough contact with their mates, or else by the impact of gravel showered down the face of the nesting cliff. In most full-sized sets there are one or two eggs notably lighter in color than their mates, and these are definitely known to be either the first or the last laid, sometimes one and sometimes the other, showing that the period of maximum pigment supply is not strictly coincident with the period of egg deposition. The youngsters when hatched, and for a week or two thereafter, are exceptionally ugly, being sinfully naked, and of a nondescript greenish yellow and brownish color, with red mouth-linings. This latter point is always worth mentioning, for a touch on the nest of a food-laden parent is always taken as an order, Present mouths! And the display Taken in San Luis Obispo County Photo by the Author THE RAVEN’'S BROOD THE BIRDMAN CRAMMED A WAIF (AND UNGUARANTEED) QUAIL’S EGG INTO THIS EXPECTANT MAW. THE RESULT WAS HIGHLY SATISFACTORY 5) The Raven of red flannel thereupon ensuing is faultless from a technical standpoint. April is the nesting month for Ravens in coastal California, but interior breeding ranges come on earlier, in February even. In ranges subject to considerable persecution, or, let us confess, oological attention, the Ravens learn to avoid the habitual season. On one famous trip, April 10-20, 1916, through country much ‘‘shot over,’’ we located nineteen pairs of Ravens. Of these, five pairs loitered over unfinished nests, six boasted young in various stages up to the flying point, and from the lot we gleaned only two perfect sets of fresh eggs. We felt, clearly, that we were being outwitted by the birds, and especially when one of them fled scornfully from a tree-top, a white oak, in which she had hidden Taken in Kern County Photo by the Author “THE COLUMBARIUM” FALCONS AND RAVENS HAVE NESTED IN THESE CRANNIES FOR AGES a nestful of babies. In an experience covering some scores of nests, this was the only example of a tree-nesting Raven. I am told, however, that they do nest in trees in Mendocino and Del Norte Counties, where they are also exceptionally common. 14 The Raven The Raven’s reputed wit failed him, however, in another instance recorded during the same season of 1916. We were working in the juniper country west of the Carriso plains, and we noticed a pair of birds engaged about a low cliff at the head of a small spur canyon. I watched them through binoculars as they brought several sticks to a certain point on the ledge. Investigation disclosed an astonishing condition of affairs. The daffy birds had been trying to lodge the foundations of a nest in a small sloping crevice where any sort of lodgment was practically impossible. As a result, every stick had fallen, in its turn, until a pile six feet in diameter and not less than two feet high lay at the bottom of the cliff—two hundred pounds weight of wood, and not a mud-sill to the good yet! And about forty feet along under the same cliff was another stick pile, evidently the accumulation of the preceding season. These birds were obsessed with the determination to occupy this cliff whether or no, and had gone childless for two seasons! Manifestly a case for the alienist. Of the Raven as a captive a separate volume might be written. When we shall have recovered somewhat from our present excessive devotion to protectionism, we may avail ourselves again of the unending interest which attaches to the study of the psychology of birds at close range. No fitter subject could be found than the Raven. Cunning, agile, adroit, and intensely mischievous, a Raven brought up by hand is, nevertheless, capable of a considerable affection. He is reputed a good talker, albeit with speech of a certain muffled quality, due no doubt to the “depth” of his voice. Having, like the Crow and the Magpie, an incurable fondness for bright articles, as well as a destructive disposition, he cannot be allowed to run at large; nor, indeed, to be caged with smaller birds. No one, therefore, ought to undertake the task of rearing a Raven who is not prepared to give it abundant cage room, and to profit fully by the opportunity for psychological study thereby afforded. For the rest, the Raven is likely to outlive its captor; for it is the very symbol of longevity, having attained in several instances, according to credible testimony, a full century. Think of it! A centenarian Mephistopheles with feathers still unsinged! The Western Crow No. 2 Western Crow A. O. U. No. 488b. Corvus brachyrhynchos hesperis Ridgway. Synonyms.—CALiFrorniA Crow. ComMMON Crow. AMERICAN CROW. Description.—Entire plumage glossy black, for the most part with greenish blue, steel-blue, and violaceous reflections; feathers of the neck normal, rounded. Bill and feet black, iris brown. Length 406.4-508 (16.00-20.00); wing 302 (12.00); tail 170 (6.70); bill 46.5 (1.83); depth at nostril 16.5 (.65). Female averages smaller than male. Recognition Marks.—'‘‘Crow-size’—much smaller than Raven; tail shorter, and only slightly rounded. Nesting.— Nest: a neat hemisphere of sticks and twigs, carefully lined with soft bark strips, or, rarely, roots and grasses; placed at any height in trees, often well concealed. Eggs, 4 or 5, rarely 6; ovate or elongate ovate; pale bluish green (lichen green, glaucous green, or even dark greenish glaucous), spotted and marked with olive and related shades, sometimes so heavily as to appear almost uniform olive. Av. size (without distinction from typicus) 41.4 x 29.1 (1.63 x 1.15); index 70.5. Season: April 20-May 20; one brood. Range of Corvus brachyrhynchos—TYemperate North America. Range of C. 0. hesperis—Chiefly western United States from Rocky Mountains to Pacific Coast, save shores of northwestern Washington; north into the interior of British Columbia, south to southern California, Arizona, and western Texas. Range in California.—Resident; of very local distribution at the lower levels nearly throughout the State. Not found in the deserts nor in the higher ranges; of rare occurrence east of the Sierran divide (Davis Creek, Modoc Co., June 10, 1912; Eagleville, June 30, 1912; Mono Lake, June 3, 1919). Favors riparian association, cultivated valleys, and the live oak association of the coastal districts. Authorities—Gambel (Corvus ossifragus and C. americanus), Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 2, vol. i., 1847, p. 47; Henshaw, Rept. Orn. Wheeler Surv., 1876, p. 251; 1879, pp. 302-306 (crit.; habits); Rzdgway, Manual N. Amer. Birds, 1887, p. 362 (description of hesperis); Kalmbach, Bull. U. S. Dept. Agric., no. 621, 1918, 92 pp., 3 pls. (life history and food). SINCE coming to California I cannot rid myself of the impression that there is something childish about the Crow—scarcely ‘ ‘child-like and bland’’ either, for he is astute enough, and wary to a degree. It cannot be merely because he is noisy, or that he loves crowds, that he gives the impression of frivolity, or irresponsibility. Doubtless it is rather because of constant comparison with his somber kinsman, the Raven, self-contained black angel and villain of nature’s plot. We have oftener heard in our wanderings the doomful croak of the larger Corvus, so when we come plump upona roistering company of Crows, the lighter quality of their voices strikes us oddly, and we imagine ourselves with a company of school-children at recess time. 16 The Western Crow The Crow in California is no such constant factor of bird life as he is in the East. He is, instead, very local and sharply restricted in his distribution, so that to a traveller the appearance of Crows is rather a novelty, something to be jotted down in the field-book; and Crow country can scarcely comprise more than a twentieth part of the total area of the State. Confined for the most part to river bottoms or to rich Taken in Santa Barbara County . Photo by the Author A FLIGHT OF WESTERN CROWS alluvial valleys, separated by wide stretches of crowless country, the behavior of these birds is so strongly influenced by local conditions, that generalizations as to nesting habits, absence of fear, etc., are futile. In some sections the birds mock at you from the wayside fence-posts. Elsewhere it may be difficult to obtain specimens. In one valley the Crows will nest in sycamores, in another in live oak trees, in another in the depths of the fir forest. 17, The Western Crow These dusky birds are notorious mischief-makers, no doubt of that. But they are not so black, perhaps, as they have been painted. More than any other bird, save the Raven, the Crow has successfully matched his wits against those of man, and his frequent easy victories and conse- quent boastings are responsible in large measure for the unsavory repu- tation in which he is held. It is a familiar adage in ebony circles that the proper study of Crow-kind is man; and so well has he pursued this study that he may fairly be said to hold his own in spite of fierce and ingenious persecution. He rejoices in the name of outlaw, and ages of ill-treatment have only served to sharpen his wits and intensify his cunning. That the warfare waged against him is largely unnecessary, and partly unjust, has been pretty clearly proven of late by scientists who have investigated the Crow’s food habits. It is true that he destroys large numbers of eggs and nestlings, and, if allowed to, that he will occasionally invade the poultry yard—and for such conduct there can be no apology. It is true, also, that some damage is inflicted upon corn in the roasting-ear stage, and that corn left out through the winter constitutes a staple article of Crow diet. But it is estimated that birds and eggs form only about one-half of one per cent of their total diet; and in the case of grain, certain- ly they perform conspicuous services in raising the crop. Besides the articles of food mentioned, great quantities of crickets, beetles, grass- hoppers, caterpillars, cut-worms, and spiders, are consumed. Frogs, lizards, mice, and snakes also appear occasionally upon the bill of fare. On the whole, therefore, the Crow is not an economic Gorgon, and his destruction need not largely concern the farmer, although it is always well to teach the bird a proper reverence. The psychology of the Crow is worthy of a separate treatise. All birds have a certain faculty of direct perception, which we are pleased to call instinct; but the Crow, at least, comes delightfully near to reasoning. It is on account of his phenomenal brightness that a Crow is among the most interesting of pets. If taken from the nest and well treated, a young Crow can be given such a large measure of freedom as fully to justify the experiment from a humanitarian standpoint. Of course the sure end of such a pet is death by an ignorant neighbor’s gun, but the dear departed is embalmed in memory to such a degree that all Crows are thereafter regarded as upon a higher plane. Everyone knows that Crows talk. Their cry is usually represented by a single syllable, caw, but it is capable of many and important modifi- cations. For instance, keraw, keraw, comes from some irritated and apprehensive female, who is trying to smuggle a stick into the grove; kawk-kawk-kawk proclaims sudden danger, and puts the flock into instant commotion; while caw-aw, caw-aw, caw-aw, reassures them. Once, in win- 18 The Western Crow ter when the bird-man, for sport, was mystifying the local bird population by reproducing the notes of the Screech Owl, a company of Crows settled in the tops of neigh- boring trees, and earnestly discussed the probable nature of the object half concealed under a camera cloth. Finally, they gave it up and withdrew —as I supposed. Taken in Oregon Photo by Bohlman and Finley WESTERN CROW AT NEST It seems that one old fellow was not satisfied, for as I ventured to shift ever so little from my strained position, he set up a derisive Ca-a-a-aw from a branch over my head, as who should say, ‘‘Aw, ye can’t fool me. Y’re just a m-a-an,”’ and flapped away in disgust. Space fails in which to describe the elaborate structure of Crow society; to tell of the military and pedagogical systems which they en- force; of the courts of justice and penal institutions which they maintain; of the vigilantes who visit vengeance upon evil-minded owls and other offenders; or even of the games which they play,— tag, hide-and-seek, blind-man’s-buff and pull-away. These things are sufficiently attested by competent observers: we may only spare a word for that most serious business of life, nesting. Wg) The Western Crow A typical Crow’s nest is a very substantial affair, as our illustration shows. Upon a basis of coarse sticks, a mat of dried leaves, grasses, bark- strips, and dirt, or mud, is impressed. The deep rounded bowl thus formed is carefully lined with the inner bark of the willow, or with twine, horse-hair, cow-hair, rabbit-fur, wool, or any other soft substance avail- able. When completed, the nesting hollow is seven or eight inches across and three or four deep. The expression ‘‘Crow’s nest,’’ as used to indicate disarray, really arises from the consideration of o/d nests. Since the birds resort to the same locality year after year, but never use an old nest, the neighboring structures of successive years come to represent every stage of dilapidation. North or South, April is the nesting month for all proper Crows. March eggs are of record, and, of course, a few laggards show up in May. Such matters as time and place appear to be pretty rigidly ordained by the clan or community council, for Crows are loosely gregarious, even in their nesting. While one rarely sees occupied nests in adjoining trees, Taken in Riverside County Photo by Wright M. Pierce NEST AND EGGS OF WESTERN CROW 20 The Western Crow to find a dozen or a score in a certain section of woodland, is the rule rather than the exception. Caution reigns here as at other times, and nest-building operations are suspended for the nonce if the Crows suspect the presence of a hated human. There is a way, however, by which an adroit observer may learn the Corvine secret, no matter how carefully hidden the domicile may be. In the honeymoon days attendant upon deposition, the amorous crow will call her mate to the nest-side from time to time by giving the hunger cry, anh annh,—identical in quality, apparently, with the sounds which will issue clamorously from the nest five or six weeks later. It is the coaxing, irresistible call of the eternal feminine, and the black swain will yield to its solicitations, even though it be against his better judgment. Alas, how many a poor wight has been trapped through his affections! The secret is out, Mr. Crow! Fresh eggs may, therefore, be found by the second or third week in April. Incubation lasts from fourteen to eighteen days; and the young, commonly four or five in number, are born naked and blind. It is when the Crow children are hatched that Nature begins to groan. It is then that birds’ eggs are quoted by the crate, and beetles by the hecatomb are sacrificed daily in a vain effort to satisfy the Gargantuan appetites of these young ebons. I once had the misfortune to pitch camp in a grove of willows which contained a nestful of Crows. The old birds never forgave me, but upbraided me in bitter language from % early morn till dewy eve. The young- sters also suffered somewhat, I fear, for as often as a parent bird approached, cawing in a curiously muffled voice, choked with food, and detected me outside the tent, it HOMEWARD BOUND Photo by the Author The Western Crow swallowed its burden without compunction, in order that it might the more forcibly berate me. If the male happened to discover my out-of-doorsness in the absence of his mate, he would rush at her when she hove in sight, in an officious, blustering way, and shout, ‘‘Look out there! Keep away! The Rhino is on the rampage again!’’ I learned, also, to recognize the appearance of hawks in the offing. At the first sign the Crow, presumably the male, begins to roll out ob- jurgatory gutturals as he hurries forward to meet the intruder. His utterances, freely translated, run somewhat as follows: ‘‘That blank, blank, Swainson Hawk! | thought I told him to keep away from here. Arrah, there, you slab-sided son of an owl! What are ye doing here? Git out o’ this! (Biff! Biff!) Git, I tell ye! (Biff!) If ever I set eyes on ye again, I'll feed ye to the coyotes. Git, now!’’ And all this without the slightest probability that the poor hawk would molest the hideous young pickaninnies if he did discover them. For when was a self-respect- ing hawk so lost to decency as to be willing to ‘‘eat crow?’’ Crows, always sociable, become strictly gregarious after the young families are fully grown and ready to merge themselves into the clan. Again, under the rigors of winter, vast companies assemble into what are known as roosts,—nightly, communal associations, which sometimes number thousands. This institution, however, is very much more loosely observed in the West, and has not, apparently, been made the subject of special study. I well remember a trick which two mischievous bird-men played on a Crow roost in Ohio. The birds were using a certain stretch of ‘‘second growth’’ that season, and so were sleeping at a height of only fifteen or twenty feet. We stole out before a hint of dawn, and succeeded in getting to the very centre of the roost unsuspected. So when Brother Jones turned loose a good imitation of a Hoot Owl’s cry, there was something doing. In a silence which could be felt every bird made a desperate leap into midair. And then ensued such a pandemonium of rage as I never was privileged to witness before. The air crashed with sound. Corvine expletives mingled with direst threats; and I suppose if there had been a veritable Horned Owl aloft, he would have been minced inatrice. As it was, our laughter bore witness to the Crows’ discomfiture, though their disillusionment was slow, and they moved off grumbling and wondering. The Clark Nutcracker No. 3 Clark’s Nutcracker A. O. U. No. 491. Nucifraga columbiana (Wilson). Synonyms.—Crark’s Crow. PINE Crow. Gray Crow. ‘‘CAMP ROBBER” (Through confusion with the Gray Jay, Perisoreus sp.). ‘‘Clarke’s’’ Crow, etc., (name misspelled, as conclusively demonstrated by Coues). Description.—Adult in fresh plumage (fall and winter): General body color light neutral gray, changing to white on face all around, including circumocular area; wings glossy black, the secondaries broadly tipped with white; under tail-coverts and four outermost pairs of rectrices white, the fifth pair with outer web chiefly white and the inner web chiefly black, the remaining (central) pair of rectrices and the upper tail-coverts black; axillars and wing linings deep mouse gray to sooty black, often varied by white (in younger specimens?). Bill and feet black; iris brown. Adults in worn plumage (spring and summer): The gray element changing to brownish, light drab, or even drab (the breast often stained irregularly with olive-brown through AS The Clark Nutcracker contact with pitch); the white of face soiled or brown-stained. Young birds are like adults in worn plumage. Length 279.4-330.2 (11.00-13.00); wing 192 (7.00-8.00); tail 115 (4.50); bill 40.7 (1.60); tarsus 36.8 (1.45). Female smaller than male. Recognition Marks.—Kingfisher size; gray plumage with abruptly contrasting black-and-white of wings and tail; harsh ‘“‘char-r’’ note. Nesting.— Nest: a thick-walled cup composed chiefly of fine barkstrips, externally of interlaced sticks; lining of finest shredded bark; placed at moderate heights in pinyon, juniper, or pine. Eggs: 2 or 3, or, rarely, 4. ‘‘Ground color light lichen-green. Light mottlings or streakings of pale drab-gray and minute spottings of Saccardo’s olive distributed over the entire surface, with a slight confluence at the larger end whence a faintly defined banded effect is noticeable’ (Bradbury). Av. of 15 eggs: 33-3 X 23.1 (1.31 x .gI); index 70. Season: March at the lower breeding levels; prob- ably later with increase of elevation; one brood. General Range.—Western North America in coniferous timber, from Arizona and New Mexico to Alaska; casual east of the Rockies. Range in California.—Common resident in the higher timbered mountain ranges practically throughout the State, occurring from high Transition up to the summits. Also of sporadic occurrence at the lower levels in fall and winter—Point Reyes, Nov. 19, 1900, (J. Mailliard); Point Pinos (W. K. Fisher); Carmel (J. L. Schles- inger); Santa Barbara (various occurrences, specimen taken Oct. 15, 1919); Colorado Desert near Indio (C. O. Esterly); at sea near Los Angeles (G. F. Ferris). Authorities.—Newberry (Picicorvus columbianus), Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. vi., pt. iv., 1857, p. 83; Feiner, Ann. Rept. Smithsonian Inst. for 1864 (1865), p. 427 (range; habits); Henshaw, Rept. Orn. Wheeler Surv., 1876, p. 252 (habits); Merriam, C. H., North Amer. Fauna, no. 16, 1899, pp. 119-121, 2 figs. (habits; food); AM/ailliard, J., Condor, vol. xxii., 1920, pp. 160-161 (at Carmel; habits). NO BIRD-LOVER can forget his first encounter with this singular Old-Bird-of-the-Mountains. Ten to one the bird brought the man up standing by a stentorian char’r’r, char’r’r, char'r'r, which led him to search wildly in his memory whether Rocs are credited with voices. If the bird was particularly concerned at the man’s intrusion, he presently revealed himself sitting rather stolidly on a high pine branch, repeating that harsh and deafening cry. The grating voice is decidedly unpleasant at close quarters, and it is quite out of keeping with the unquestioned sobriety of its grizzled owner. A company of Nutcrackers in the distance finds frequent occasion for outcry, and the din is only bearable as it is softened and modified by the re-echoing walls of some pine-clad gulch, or else dissipated by the winds which sweep over the listening glaciers. But the Nutcracker’s repertory is not exhausted by a single cry. For years I was puzzled by sporadic eruptions of a strange, feline cry, meack, or mearrk, a piercing and rather frightful sound. The Clark Nutcracker proved at last to be responsible, and he was only at play! The very next morning after the mountain lion scare, we had the versatile 24 The Clark Nutcracker birds as musicians. Two of them got out their little toy trumpets, pitched about a fifth apart, and proceeded to give us the Sierran reveille: hee hee hee, hee hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee. hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo The notes were really quite musical, and the comparison established of children’s tin trumpets was irresistible. The effect produced by the Taken in the Tehtpite Valley Photo by the Author A HARD NUT TO CRACK two birds sounding in different keys was both pleasant and amusing— Merry Christmas in July! The concert lasted two or three minutes, and its conclusion was announced when one of the youngsters shouted Charr (as who should say, Rats!), and burst out of the tree. Clark’s Nutcracker is the presiding genius of all our higher mountain bodies, including in his regular haunts the pinyon-forested desert ranges, as well as the rugged fastnesses of the central Cordilleras. At the close of the breeding season, and especially in the late summer, the birds have a wider vertical range, pressing the limits of evergreen timber at the lower levels, as well as paying occasional visits to the topmost peaks. There is no migration in the proper sense, but occasional individuals turn up now and then in most unexpected places. For example, a stray bird appeared at Miramar, a fashionable seaside resort near Santa Bar- bara, on the 28th of January, 1917. And again in the fall of 1919 there 25 The Clark Nutcracker was a visitation of Nutcrackers which involved most of the coastal counties from Monterey to the Colorado desert. A specimen now in the M. C. O. collection was taken in Montecito; and another bird spent fully three weeks in Alameda Park, in the heart of Santa Barbara. This black-and-white-and-gray ‘‘Crow”’ curiously combines the char- acteristics of Woodpecker and Jay as well. Like the Lewis Woodpecker, he sometimes hawks at passing insects, eats berries from bushes, or alights on the ground to glean grubs, grasshoppers, and black crickets. In the mountains it shares with the Jays of the Perisoreus group the names “‘meat-bird’’ and ‘‘camp-robber,’’ for nothing that is edible comes amiss to this bird, and instances are on record of its having invaded not only the open-air kitchen, but the tent, as well, in search of ‘‘supplies’’. Like all other members of the Corvidae, Clark’s Crow bears a bad reputa- tion among the lesser songsters. One that had been caught sneaking about in the pine-trees just below our Cottonwood Lakes camp, was fercely set upon by a pair of Western Wood Pewees. The pursuers gave the rascal no rest, but drove the unhappy crow mercilessly from tree to tree, and with a persistence which left no room for doubt that they had real wrongs to avenge. At Mammoth we found them perse- cuting the Leucostictes, and knew of at least one nest being robbed by them. Of its more staple food a more northern observer says: ‘‘Clark’s Crows have, like the Crossbills, to get out the seeds from underneath the scaly coverings constituting the outward side of the fir cone. Nature has not given them crossed mandibles to lever open the scales, but in- stead, feet and claws, that serve the purpose of hands, and a powerful bill like a small crowbar. To use the crowbar to advantage the cone needs steadying, or it would snap at the stem and fall; to accomplish this one foot clasps it, and the powerful claws hold it firmly, whilst the other foot encircling the branch, supports the bird, either back downward, head downward, on its side, or upright like a woodpecker, the long clasping claws being equal to any emergency; the cone thus fixed and a firm hold maintained on the branch, the seeds are gouged out from under the scales.”’ These Nutcrackers are among the earliest and most hardy of nesters. They are practically independent of climate, but are found during the nesting months—March, or even late in February, and early April—only where there is a local abundance of pine (or fir) seeds. They are artfully silent at this season, and the impression prevails that they have ‘‘gone to the mountains’’; or, if in the mountains already, the presence of a dozen feet of snow serves to allay the oologist’s suspicions. The nest is a very substantial affair of twigs and bark-strips, heavily lined, as befits a cold season, and placed at any height in a pine or fir 26 The Clark Nutcracker tree, without noticeable attempt at concealment. The birds take turns incubating and—again because of the cold season—are very close sitters. Three eggs are usually laid, of about the size and shape of Magpies’ eggs but much more lightly colored. Incubation, Bendire thinks, lasts sixteen or seventeen days, and the young are fed chiefly on hulled pine seeds, at the first, presumably regurgitated. If the Corvine affinities of this bird were nowhere else betrayed, they might be known from the hunger cries of the young. The importunate anh, anh, anh of the expectant bantling, and the subsequent gullu, gullu, gullu of median deglutition (and boundless satisfaction) will always serve to bind the Crow, Magpie, and Nutcracker together in one compact group. When the youngsters are ‘‘ready for college,’’ the reserve of early spring is set aside and the hillsides are made to resound with much practice of that uncanny yell before mentioned. Family groups are gradually obliterated and, along in June, the birds of the foothills begin to deploy, or else to retire irregularly to the higher ranges, there to rest up after the exhausting labors of the season, or else to revel in midsummer gaiety with sundry scores of their fellows. Taken in Inyo Counly Photce by the Author MOUNT LANGLEY FROM THE COTTONWOOD LAKES A TYPICAL HAUNT OF THE CLARK NUTCRACKER The Pinyon Jay Early on a July morning, having set ourselves the task of climbing Mt. Langley, we noted on the aneroid the attainment of the thirteen thousand foot level, and were gazing wistfully up at the rugged peak looming a thousand feet higher, when, suddenly, like a wisp of snow- flakes caught up by the wind, or like a sudden bursting rocket, a flock of birds appeared right over the summit. Their breasts shone resplendent in the morning sun, and under this bright disguise it took some moments with the binoculars to make them out as Clark Crows. How jolly! these gifted creatures have held a sunrise prayer (?) meeting ‘‘already yet so soon,’’ while we poor mortals must plod on and on under a blister- ing sun! “The heights by great men won and kept Were not attained by sudden flight: But they while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night”’ evidently does not apply to the birds. No. 4 Pinyon Jay A. O. U. No. 492. Cyanocephalus cyanocephalus (Wied). Synonyms.—BLvueE Crow. MaAxIMILiANn’s JAy. PINE Jay. Description.—Adults: Plumage dull grayish blue (tyrian blue where pure) mingled with bluish gray and brownish gray, deepening on crown and nape (dusky slate-blue), brightening on cheeks (olympic blue), paling below posteriorly to neutral gray, streaked with dull white on chin, throat, and chest, centrally. Bill and feet black; iris brown. Adult female: Like male, but somewhat duller, with increase of gray. Young birds are still duller, gray rather than blue, except on wings and tail. Length of adult male: 279.4-304.8 (11.00-12.00); wing 154 (6.00); tail 114 (4.50); bill 36 (1.42); tarsus 38 (1.50). Adult female: wing 144.5 (5.68); tail 104 (39.5); bill 31.5 (1.24), tarsus 35.5 (1.40). Recognition Marks.—Robin size; blue color; crow-like aspect. Nesting.— Nest: composed of twigs, heavily lined with finely shredded bark strips; placed at moderate height in pinyon or juniper. Eggs: 4 or 5; pale greenish white, speckled quite uniformly with olive-brown. Av. of 25 eggs in the U. S. National Museum 30.2 x 22.1 (1.19 x .87); index 73. Av. of 20 eggs from Santa Fe in the M. C. O: 27.3 x 21.9 (1.075 x .846); index 78. Season: April-May 10; one brood. General Range.—Pinyon and juniper woods of western United States; north to southern British Columbia (interior), Idaho, etc.; south to northern Lower California, Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas; casually along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. 28 pad: on a July morning, javing s set ourselves: dhe pei ee pres te Mt. Langley, we noted on the aneroid the attainment of the thirteen _ thousand foot level. and were gazing wistiully up at the rugged peal ~ looming a thousand feet higher, when, suddenly, like a wisp of snow+— flakes caught up by the wind, or like a sudden bursting rocket, a flock of birds appeared right over the summit. Their breasts shone resplendent in the morning sun, and under this bright disguise it took some moments with the binoculars to make them out as Clark Crows. How jolly! these gifted creatures have held a sunrise prayer (7) meeting ‘already yet so anon, '' while we poor mortals must plod on and on under a blister- ing sun! “The heights by great men won and kept Were not attained by sudden flight: But they while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night”’ evidently does not apply to the birds. Nie. 4 Aeon y% life s ae AO, © WoFaem.4 watercolor pas ing ty Main lan Bes Synonyms.—-Buos Caow. Maximian's Jay. Pm Jay. Description.—Adults: Plumage dull grayish blue (tyrian tiue where pure) mingled with bluish gray and brownish gray, deepening on crown and nape (dusky slate-blue), brightening on cheeks (olympic blue), paling below posteriorly to neutral gray, streaked with dull white on chin, throat, and chest, centrally. Bill and feet black; iris brown. Aduif female: Like male, but somewhat duller, with increase of gray. Young birds are still duller, gray rather than blue, except on wings and tail. Length of adule male: 279.4-304.8 (11.00-12.00); wing 154 (6,00); tail 124 (4.50); bill 36 (1.42);+ tarsus 38 (1.50). Adult female: wing 144.5 (§.63); tail 104 (39.5); bill 37.5. (x24), tarsus 35.5. (1.40), : f Recognition Marks. Robin size; tue color: crows asp Nesting.--- Nest: chanpeaey at ewige, heasdiy Haw stripe; placed at niderate hyight ia pentane) + Dep eAG hive, speckied quite uniformly with der brawn we ad Wire aboe 8 22k Fp ek BG tote ce ed nae BEE 87 A GAG! aia Me ades GR Simi (enersd Range Sisteu: svat Sanitary gecade oo eee: Badued: Seyies: ean ta sonthern Bein’ Colsnaiés Guiering®, Mako, etc. paouth to northern Lower California, Aviohs, New Manis: and wowana Tasies Gasuaty along the eastern tail ot Sg! Rocky Ms omaneaag, te we The Pinyon Jay Range in California.—‘‘Common resident locally of arid Upper Sonoran and Transition, chiefly along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada and ranges of southern California, and on the desert ranges of the Inyo district. Its permanent habitat is closely coincident with the presence of the pinyon (Pinus monophylla) and juniper (Juniperus occidentalis)’’ (Grinnell). Also indulges in extraordinary wanderings in fall and winter. Has occurred thus at Pasadena (Gaylord), Santa Barbara (Dawson), Pacific Grove (J. Mailliard), Berkeley (J. Grinnell), and even Eureka (Grinnell). Authorities.—Feilner (Gymnokitta cyanocephala), Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst. for 1864 (1865), p. 427 (habits); Fisher, A. K., N. Am. Fauna, no. 7, 1893, Pp- 72-73 (range; food); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Am. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 424-426, pl. iii., (figs. 24, 25) (habits, nest and eggs); Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 69 (status in s. Calif.); van Rossem and Pierce, Condor, vol. xvii., 1915, p. 164. THE RANGE of the Pinyon Jay is normally coextensive with that of the pinyon (Pinus monophylla) plus that of the juniper (Juniperus occidentalis); hence, it is chiefly confined in California to the eastern slopes of the Sierras and the desert ranges of Riverside, San Bernardino and Inyo counties. The bird is, however, a great wanderer, and sporadic occurrences have been recorded from several of the coastal counties, stretching from San Diego clear to Humboldt. The Santa Barbara record was made on October 9th, 1914, when a flock of about two hundred birds flew westward over town at a height of about half a mile. They suggested Crows both in voice and appearance; but the ‘“‘caws’’ were shorter, sharper, and thinner, and the wing-action more rapid. Grinnell encountered this species commonly at several points in the San Bernardino Mountains,! and noted its relative indifference to the human presence. The birds fed a good deal upon the ground, as well as in the pine trees; and on their foraging expeditions ventured far out into the sage flats. “‘A large scattering flock may be absolutely silent for minutes at a time, and then again indulge in a concert of nasal, mew- ing calls, which can be heard a long ways. In their method of spreading out over a sage flat, and working zigzag over the ground for insects, they closely resemble Brewer Blackbirds, both in flight and general behavior.”’ Grinnell and Swarth also noted their ground-feeding habit in the San Jacinto Mountains;? and Fisher found in a bird’s crop sprouted pine seeds, which he judged must have been gleaned from the ground. Cap- tain Bendire had perhaps the widest acquaintance with this erratic, desert-haunting species, and I record his testimony, even though it both duplicates and contradicts portions of the foregoing: “Their call notes are quite variable; some of them are almost as harsh as the ‘chaar’ of the Clarke’s Nutcracker, others partake much of the gabble of the Magpie, and still others resemble more those of the Jays. A shrill, querulous ‘peeh, peeh,’ or ‘whee, whee,’ is their common 1"The Biota of the San Bernardino Mountains,”’ 1908, pp. 85, 86. 2 2 Birds and Mammals of San Jacinto,”’ 1913, p. 263. 9 The Pinyon Jay call note. While feeding on the ground they keep up a constant chat- tering, which can be heard for quite a distance, and in this way often betray their whereabouts. ‘Tt is an eminently sociable species at all times, even during the breed- ing season, and is usually seen in large compact flocks, moving about from place to place in search of feeding grounds, being on the whole rather restless and erratic in its movements; you may meet with thou- sands in a place to-day and perhaps to-morrow you will fail to see a single one. It is rarely met with at altitudes of over 9,000 feet in summer, and scarcely ever in the higher coniferous forests; its favorite haunts are the pinyon-covered foothills of the minor mountain regions, the sweet and very palatable seeds of these trees furnishing its favorite food during a considerable portion of the year. In summer they feed largely on insects of all kinds, especially grasshoppers, and are quite expert in catching these on the wing; cedar and juniper berries, small seeds of various kinds, and different species of wild berries also enter largely into their bill of fare. A great deal of time is spent on the ground where they move along in compact bodies while feeding, much in the manner of Blackbirds, the rearmost birds rising from time to time, flying over the flock and alighting again in front of the main body; they are rather shy and alert while engaged in feeding. I followed a flock numbering several thousands which was feeding in the open pine forest bordering the Kla- math Valley, Oregon, for more than half a mile, trying to get a shot at some of them, but in this I was unsuccessful. They would not allow me to get within range, and finally they became alarmed, took wing, and flew out of sight down the valley.”’ Although breeding within our borders to the number of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, it is a matter of amused record (Oct. 1918) that no occupied nest of the Pinyon Jay has ever been reported for California. Why sigh for Africa or Alaska with such unexploited fields at home! An observer in Utah, Mr. H. C. Johnson!, testifies that in its nesting habits this jay is decidedly erratic. Sometimes it nests singly, but oftener en colonie. While they nest preferably in some variety of conifer, pinyon, scrub cedar, juniper, and the like, they occur also in the mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius Nutt.), or even in brushy thickets. One mountain mahogany he knows of that is ‘fairly full of nests, some nearly touching each other.’’ Evidently the ‘‘ Native Sons’’ have been caught napping. 1The Condor, vol. IV., p. 14. The Black-billed Magpie Taken in Washington Photo by the Author NEST OF MAGPIE IN GREASEWOOD No. 5 American Magpie A. O. U. No. 475. Pica pica hudsonia (Sabine). Synonym.—BLACcK-BILLED MAGPIE Description.—A dults: Black and white; head and neck, breast, back, crissum, thighs and upper tail coverts, axillars and lining of wings, glossy hlack with steely purplish and bronzy green reflections; the throat with whitish shaft streaks; an elongated scapular patch pure white; lower breast, upper abdomen, flanks and: sides broadly pure white; primaries extensively white on inner ‘web; a broad band on rump with large admixture of white; remainder of wings and tail black, their exposed upper sur- faces with shiny metallic reflections, those of the wing chiefly greenish blue, those of the tail bronzy green changing sub-terminally through purple and violet; tail narrowly graduated through terminal three-fifths. Bill, bare orbital space, legs, and feet, black: iris brown, surrounded by gray. Young birds lack iridescence on head and are else- where duller, the throat marked with whitish shaft lines and outcropping of basal white; relative length of tail sure index of age in juvenile specimens. Length of adults, 406.4- Sl The Black-billed Magpie 508 (16.00-20.00), of which tail, av. 265 (8.00-12.00); wing 200 (7.85); bill (exposed culmen) 35 (1.35); tarsus 47 (1.85). Recognition Marks.—Black and white plumage with long tail unmistakable, bill black as distinguished from P. nuttalli. Nesting.— Nest: Normally a large sphere of interlaced sticks, ‘“‘as big as a bushel basket,’ placed 5 to 40 feet high in willow, aspen, grease-wood or pine. The nest proper is a contained hemisphere of mud 8 to 10 inches across inside, and with walls I to 2 inches in thickness, carefully lined for half its depth with twigs surmounted by a mat of fine rootlets. Eggs: 7 or 8, rarely 10, pale grayish green, quite uniformly freckled and spotted with olive-green or olive-brown. Occasionally spots nearly confluent in heavy ring about larger end, in which case remainder of egg likely to be less heavily marked than usual. Shape variable, rounded ovate to elongate ovate. Av. size, 32.5 X 22.9 (1.28 x .90); index 70.3. Season: March 20-May 1; one brood. Range of Pica pica.—Europe, the most of Asia, and North America south to Arizona and New Mexico. Range of P. p. hudsonia.—Resident in the western United States (except the Pacific Coast district), and interiorly in the British Provinces; from central New Mexico and western Texas north to central Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and northwestward to the middle Yukon and the eastern Aleutian Islands: casually, eastward in the North Central States to Ontario and the Hudson Bay region. Range in Californias—Common resident in Upper Sonoran and Transition zones, northeast of the Sierran divide; less commonly east of the Sierras as far south as Independence in Inyo County, and (formerly at least) west along the northern border of the State to Shasta Valley. Authorities.—Newberry, Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. vi., pt. iv., 1857, p. 84; Henshaw, Rept. Orn. Wheeler Survey, 1879, pp. 306-307 (nesting habits); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 349-353, (habits, nests and eggs); Fisher, W. K., Condor, vol. iv., 1902, pp. 6, 11 (habits); Ray, Auk, vol. xx., 1903, p. 185 (nest- ing). HERE IS another of those rascals in feathers who keep one alter- nately grumbling and admiring. As an abstract proposition one would not stake a sou marquee on the virtue of a Magpie; but taken in the concrete, with a sly wink and a saucy tilt of the tail, one will rise to his feet, excitedly shouting, “Go it, Jackity,’’ and place all his earnings on this pie-bald steed in the race for avian honors. It is impossible to exaggerate this curious contradiction in Magpie nature, and in our resulting attitude towards it. It is much the same with the mischievous small boy. He has surpassed the bounds of legitimate naughtiness, and we take him on the parental knee for well-deserved correction. But the saucy culprit manages to steal a roguish glance at us,—a glance which challenges the remembrance of our own boyish pranks, and bids us ask what difference it will make twenty years after; and it is all off with discipline for that occasion. The Magpie is indisputably a wretch, a miscreant, a cunning thief, a heartless marauder, a brigand bold—Oh, call him what you will! But, withal, he is such a picturesque villain, that as often as you are stirred S2 SH AMERICAN MAGPIE The Black-billed Magpie with righteous indignation and impelled to punitive slaughter, you fall to wondering if your commission as avenger is properly countersigned, and—shirk the task outright. The cattle-men have it in for him, because the persecutions of the Magpie sometimes prevent scars made by the branding iron from healing; and cases are known in which young stock has died because of malignant sores resulting. This is, of course, a grave misdemeanor; anything which affects our pocketbook is sure to be rated such. But when the in- humane custom of branding shall have been discontinued, as it will be when the fence- loving farmer triumphs over the freedom-loving cattleman (a sad day, however), we shall hear no more complaints of the Magpie on the score of _ cruelty to animals. Beyond this it is indis- putably true that Magpies are professional nest robbers. At times they will organize sys- tematic searching parties, and advance through the sage-brush, poking, prying, spying, and de- vouring, with the ruthlessness and precision of a_ pestilence. Not only eggs but young birds are appropriated. I once sawa Magpie seize a half-grown Meadowlark from its nest, carry it to its own domicile, and parcel it out among its clamoring brood. Taken in Inyo County Photo by the Author Then, in spite of the best de- A BIRD IN THE HAND fense the agonized parents could institute, it calmly returned and selected another. Sticks and stones shied by the birdman merely deferred the doom of the remaining larks. The Magpie was not likely to forget the whereabouts of such easy meat. Nor is such a connoisseur of eggs likely to overlook the opportunities afforded by a poultry yard. He becomes an adept at purloining eggs, Si wt Pe AyunoD oduy ul uaye yf, 4oyjn py ayy hq aaippbau v TOT adder pofiq-ypryg Jo ye.310g osog Ayuner V The Black-billed Magpie and can make off with his booty with astonishing ease. One early morning, seeing a Magpie fly over the corral with some- thing large and white in his bill, and believing that he had alighted not far beyond, I fol- lowed quickly and frightened him from a large hen’s egg, which bore externally the marks of the bird’s bill, but which was unpierced. Of course the only remedy for such a habit is the |} shot-gun. To say that Magpies are garrulous would be as trite as to say hens cackle, and the ad- jective could not be better defined than ‘‘talking like a Magpie.” The Magpie is the symbol of loquacity. The very type in which this is printed is small pica; that is, small Mag- pie. Much of this bird’s con- versation is undoubtedly unfit for print, but it has always the merit of vivacity. A party of Magpies will keep up a running commentary on current events, now facetious, now vehement, as they move about; while a comparative cessation of the racket means, as likely as not, that some favorite raconteur is holding forth, and that there ““UNDOUBTEDLY UNFIT FOR PRINT”’ will be an explosion of riotous laughter when his tale is done. The pie, like Nero, aspires to song; but no sycophant will be found to praise him, for he intersperses his more tune- ful musings with chacks and barks and harsh interjections which betray a disordered taste. In modulation and quality, however, the notes some- times verge upon the human; and it is well known that Magpies can be instructed until they acquire a handsome repertoire of speech. Taken in Inyo County Photo by the Author EXPOSTULATION Sye J The Black-billed Mag pie In order that their double quartet of youngsters may be lined up for the egg harvest, the Magpies take an early start at home building. Aprilis Taken in Inyo,County HERSELF Photo by the Author THIS MAGPIE IS THE MOTHER OF THE YOUNGSTER SHOWN ON PAGE 34 36 the normal nesting month, and thereare late March records as far north as the northern border of the U.S. In the high plateau region of northwestern Cali- fornia, however, early May eggs are the rule rather than the exception. The birds resort at nest- ing time to the most out-of-the-way places, where they breed in straggling colony fashion. The near vicinity of water is deemed a prime requisite, so spring *draws” covered with wil- lows or quaking asps are favorite stations. Nests are, normally, at mod- erate heights, in willows, elders, or Crataegus bushes, but in regions where they have been sub- jected to persecu- tion, the birds will resort to pine trees, if available, or in more desert situa- tion to junipers, mountain mahog- any, sage bushes, or The Black-billed Magpie even the ground. The nest is a neat ball of interlacing sticks set about a hollow half-sphere of dried mud. The amount of labor expen- ded upon one of these structures is prodigious. The greasewood nest shown at the head of this article is three feet deep and two feet through, and the component sticks are so firmly interwoven that no ordi- nary agency, short of the human hand, can effect an entrance. The bird enters through an obscure passage in one side, and, if surprised upon the nest, has always a way of escape planned through the opposite wall. The mud cup is carefully shaped with walls an inch or two in thickness, a total breadth of eight or ten inches, and a like depth. In the best construction this cavity is filled to a depth of three or four inches with a loose mat of fine twigs of a uniform size. Upon this, in turn, is placed a coiled mattress of fine, clean rootlets, the whole affording a very sanitary arrangement. Magpies, like Blue Jays, are discreetly quiet in nesting time, and especially so if they have attempted to nest in the vicinity of a farm- house. Else, and save for the presence of man, the Magpie has little to fear. His home is his castle in a very literal sense. Young Magpies are unsightly when hatched,—‘“‘ worse than naked,” and repulsive to a degree equaled only by young Cormorants. Hideous as they unquestionably are, the devoted parents declare them angels, and are ready to back their opinions with most raucous vociferations. With the possible exception of Herons, who are plebes anyhow, Magpies are the most abusive and profane of birds. When a nest of young birds is threatened, they not only express such reasonable anxiety as any parent might feel, but they denounce, upbraid, anathematize, and vilify the intruder, and decry his lineage from Adam down. They show the in- genuity of Orientals in inventing opprobrious epithets, and when these run dry, they fall to tearing at the leaves, the twigs, the branches, or even light on the ground and rip up the soil with their beaks, in the mad extremity of their rage. A pair with whom I experimented in Washington rather fell into the humor of the thing. The Magpie is ever a wag, and these must have known that repeated visits could mean no harm. Nevertheless, as often as I rattled the nest from my favorite perch on the willow tree, the old pies opened fresh vials of wrath and emptied their contents upon my devoted head. When mere utterance became inadequate, the male bird fell to hewing at the end of a broken branch in most eloquent indignation. He wore this down four inches in the course of my three visits. Once, when my attention was diverted, he took a sly crack at my outstretched fingers, which were hastily withdrawn; and, believe me, we both laughed. 37 The Yellow-billed Magpie The Black-billed Magpie winters practically throughout its breeding range. In the fall, however, it gathers into flocks, sometimes of quite considerable size. Such flocks, dependent upon the food supply, range widely, and as a result may be said to indulge in irregular migratory movements. Flock movements are sometimes performed with a un- animity of impulse akin to that of Sandpipers, and the sight of say fifty Magpies, black-and-white wings a-flutter and long tails streaming, slewing and tacking with the wind, is indeed a memorable one. Wherever permitted, the Magpie becomes a faithful pensioner of the slaughter house. Stock men take advantage of the birds’ weakness for meat, and assail them with shot-gun or poison. The birds learn to be wary of both, but between these attacks and the annual raiding of the nesting grounds, it is perfectly possible to clear the Magpies out of a given range. The first discovery of a “‘fallen hero’’ by one of his comrades is the invariable signal for a noisy wake. The clan is summoned by sharp cries, and the members assemble from far and near in quick re- sponse. Now one and now another hops up cautiously to view the remains, while all make strident cries which voice their undying indig- nation at man’s cruelty. And, indeed, now that we think of it, what is the use in trying to reduce the varied offspring of nature to one dead level of mediocrity! If all birds were good little dickey birds, and said tweet tweet with pious uniformity, some men, now saintly, would un- doubtedly be moved to profane utterance. Here, then, is a toast to the Magpie, cheerful, lovable devil of a bird that he is! No. 6 Yellow-billed Magpie A. O. U. No. 476. Pica nuttalli (Audubon). Synonym.—CAaLirornia MAGPIE. Description.—Exactly similar in body coloration to Pica pica hudsonia, but bill and bare orbital space yellow and smaller. Length 406.4-457.2 (16.00-18.00); wing 187.5 (7.38); tail 238 (9.37); bill 31 (1.22); length at nostril 12.5 (.49); tarsus 48 (1.89). Recognition Marks.—Black-and-white coloration; long tail; yellow bill. Remarks.—The bright yellow bare skin below and behind eye and on the sides of the throat is a conspicuous feature of nestling birds, showing that the distinguishing characters of this bird are long established. Nesting.— Nest: Much as in preceding; a sturdy sphere of interlaced twigs, penetrated obscurely by hole giving access to contained hemisphere of mud or dried cowdung; deeply cupped and cushioned with rootlets, or, rarely, horsehair; placed in trees at any height, chiefly in white oaks and cottonwoods. Eggs: 5-7, rarely 8, or even 9: yellowish glaucous or pale olive-buff, finely and rather uniformly speckled and 38 widely, and as a fives may be said to ie in ae pn lleies ok A ‘movements, Flock sovemerts are ¢ometimes performed with aoun- animity of lpypulse akin to that of Sandpipers, and the sight of say fifty Magpies, Wackund.white wings a-Autter and long tails: streaming, — Sewing ant tacking “ith the wind, is indeed a memorable one. i Whereser permitted, the Magpie becomes a faithful pensioner Nhe on Hiatt todee. rock men take advantage of the birds’ weakness #@ thesl, ae) aesail teers with shot-gun or poison. The birds learn tobe — = Both. oot between these attacks and the annual raiding of the pe <, Mie Perfectly possible to clear the Magpies out of a > he hires diecavery of a ‘fallen hero”’ by one of his comrades — “is a ike ik «nat for a noisy wake. The clan is summoned by © Bal if aah gal ike meabhers assemble from far and near in quick re- o. “ee ope axel now another hops up cautiously to view the pa. whe af make strident cries which voice their undying indig- nario a) ees crmelty. And, indeed, now that we think of Wt, what i hr ose! oe trylig te reduce the varied offspring of nature to one dead mast cf pretiogiiy! 7! all birds were good little dickey birds, and said herst Beer vath pinus ~anormity, s men, now saintly, would un- diubtedly be nor ay hi (ol illed Magpie PIE, then, is a toast to the Magpie, cheerful, lovable deAbbuti™ life-sizehat he is! From a water-color painting by Major Allan Brooks No. 6 Yellow-billed Magpie A, OU, No. 476. Pica nuttalli (Audubon). Seoonvimn——CaLivornra Mace. Description. ~-Buagctiy similar in body coloration to Pica pica aasana! but bill fil Bare arhtot amet wellyw add smaller. Length 406.4-457.2 (16,00-18.00)} wing). PRS CS Re Ra aes) SEM FN (0.92); length lat nostril 12.5 (.40)5 tarsus 48 OL BOG, Reconinicio Marke. Sin cei bait sh usa tone tail; yellow, aie Wha, beigst veerwnore. Heys 8-7, rarely 8 Sale ist eren my ee id. The Yellow-billed Magpie spotted with buffy brown or citrine drab or grayish olive or deep grayish olive. Av. of 195 eggs in the M. C. O. collections: 30.8 x 22.4 (1.22 x .88); index 72.1. Largest egg, 37 X 23.4 (1.46 x .92); smallest, 26.7 x 20.3 (1.05 x .80). Season: first week in April; one brood. Range (Wholly included in California).—California west of the Sierras, chiefly in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley, and in the south central coastal counties; from Tehama County (Anderson, Shasta County, July 4, 1916—may possibly have been semi-domesticated birds at liberty), south to northern Ventura County and Santa Barbara County north of the Santa Ynez range (formerly to Santa Barbara, Santa Paula, Simi, etc.), east to central Butte County, Clipper Gap, Placer County, and Visalia in Tulare County, west to Mount St. Helena and the coast of Monterey County. Range thus included within about 35 contiguous counties, undoubtedly more restricted than formerly. Authorities—Audubon (Corvus nuttallii), Birds of America (folio ed.), vol. iv., 1836, pl. 362, fig. 1 (orig. descr. from Santa Barbara, Calif.);Gambel, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 2, vol. i., 1847, pp. 46-47 (habits); Evermann, Amer. Nat., vol. xx., 1886, pp. 607-611 (habits; nesting); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, PP- 355-356, pl. iil., fig. 14 (habits, nests and eggs); Noack, Condor, vol. iv., 1902, pp. 78-79 (voice); Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 67 (status in s. Calif.); Stone, Condor, vol. xviii., 1916, pp. 8-9 (history of discovery). IN ALL the world there are but two distinct types of Magpie, the Black-billed and the Yellow-billed. The former is pretty well distributed over the Northern Hemisphere, while the latter is confined to California. We find California matching the world, therefore, in a situation which invites special attention. Where did the Magpies come from? and how did they get here? For both species have arrived in California. A study of the distribution of the black-billed species, the Pica pica type, quickly shows that its center of dispersal is north central Asia. Not impossibly, the genus Pica had its origin in the north Himalayan region, now emptied of its progeny, but which scientists assert to have been the ancient cradle of the human race. For the occurrence of seven or eight closely related subspecies at such extremes as Spain (melanonota), nor- thern Africa (mauritanica), northern Europe (pica), northern Asia (bactriana), China (sericea), and northwestern America (hudsonia), clearly indicate a radial distribution. The American representative, therefore, of the black-billed species, arrived by the way of the well- known land-bridge which once connected Siberia and Alaska. But when at last Audsonza reached California, it found Pica nuttalli anciently entrenched, and it recoiled. How did nuttalli get here? Probably not by the Bering land-bridge, at least not at the time of the latest estab- lishment of that bridge; else its progress could still be traced by a series of related forms. Two hypotheses only remain, both daring, and destitute alike of actual foundation. Either nwttalli is an ur-ancient emigrant from Asia, whose congeners were blotted out by the oncoming of the ice age, IY The Yellow-billed Magpie or else the nuttalli stock was planted here by direct, and of course, arti- ficial, though prehistoric, importation from eastern Asia. It is quite conceivable that Pica pica stock, NP especially if represented by a single Bre pair, suddenly released under ab- solutely different conditions, should develop a sharp variant which would soon achieve validity as an independent species. Against the former hypothesis should be urged the failure of the species to react from its narrow confines (in theoretical southern California), when it was released by the ice. And in favor of the latter hypo- thesis may be urged the very limited distribution which the bird has attained, even in California. It is authoritatively reported from only thirty counties (or, by in- clusion, thirty-seven), all contigu- ous, out of a possible fifty-nine. We cannot tell; but at any rate there is a profoundly interesting problem here. One who is familiar with both species, pica and nuttall1, finds it a little difficult to draw distinctions of any other sort save color and size between them. ‘There are no recognizable peculiarities of voice, or motion, or nesting habit, which will serve to distinguish them. Yet I have a feeling that the Yellow-billed Magpie is a weaker stock, less aggressive and resourceful, than its northern kinsman. On the whole, too, | think it is a quieter bird. Occupying, as it does, a more favored area, with open winters, there is perhaps a less highly developed social instinct in the southern bird, with probably a less frequent resort to mob tactics. But none of these points can be pressed. Whatever the cause, whether a less virile stock, or the more intimate pressure of civilization, it is certain that Yellow-billed Magpies are suffering a gradual reduction of distributional area, with steadily de- creasing numbers. At the present rate of destruction (from injuries real 40 Taken in San Luis Obispo County Photo by the Author A CRITICAL MOMENT—COUNTING THE EGGS The Yellow-billed Magpie or fancied), it is not at all improbable that the species may be extirpated, a truly deplorable event. The Yellow-billed Magpie usually breeds in scattered colonies, either in the cottonwoods of river-bottoms, in the oak trees, whether “live’’ or deciduous, which dot the lower levels of the foothills, or else in the mixed cover, oak, ceanothus, and digger pine, which clothes the middle levels of the hills. The birds are very much attached to the locality of their choice, returning year after year to occupy the same trees, and in some instances en- during persecution on this account to the point of extinction. At other times, and especially in level country dotted with white oaks, the colony will shift from year to year. A Magpie’s nest, big asa bushel basket, would — popen in ge seem to be about the 3307 "Gounty ne rE: most conspicuous arti- ficial object in a tree-top: but it so happens that the distributional area of Pica nuttalli nearly coincides with that of the mistletoe (Phoradendron flavescens Nutt. and P. villosum Nutt.). As a result we have trees full of Magpies’ nests — to appearance — with never a bird about. Or, if the birds are about, they are cunning enough to avail themselves of the mistletoe bunches, either building in the clump itself, or building in trees generously pro- vided with these puzzling decoys. One Magpie’s nest I found in San Luis Obispo County was only one of twenty-five likely-looking chances in a single tree. If undisturbed, a pair of birds will usually return to the same tree each season, rarely, indeed, to occupy last year’s nest, but often to use it as a foundation for the new structure. Double nests, on this account, are common, and I once found a composite structure, a huge pile, representing the work of four successive seasons. When approached, the sitting bird usually sits tight until the climber is within a few feet of the nest. Then she makes good her escape from the opposite side, and takes care for the nonce to keep the nest, or the tree, or both, between herself and the pursuer. THE CHOLAME NESTING 41 The Yellow-billed Magpie A bulky sphere, or inverted pear-shaped mass of sticks, greets the investigator, for the upper dome, or cover, is likely to be a little larger than the lower, which contains the nesting bowl proper. Three feet in depth by two and a half in width, over all, are the regulation dimensions for these castles; but I have seen splendid nests, all new construction, which measured 4% by 3% feet, roughly thirty-three and a half cubic feet of material, including house room. The bowl, or matrix, is some- times formed of mud, but oftener of cow-dung, for this substance is both more convenient and more durable for birds in the cattle country. The wall of an experienced builder dips gracefully to the depth of an inch or two at the entrance; while the entire bowl is from seven to ten inches in diameter inside, by from four to seven in depth to the floor-lining. Of course, this large space is not completely occupied by the body of the sitting bird. It is only a provision for that roomful of youngsters which is on the way. In at least one instance I have noted a second or inner hollow, in the mud cup, exactly fitted to the dimensions of the sitting bird. Eggs to the number of seven, rarely more, are deposited upon a generous mattress lining of roots or coiled grasses. Incubation lasts twenty-one days, during which time the bared breast of the brooding bird is grievously tormented with fleas. There is no time for recuperation, though, after the youngsters come. Life, instead, becomes one long nightmare of effort to fill seven insatiable maws. What wonder, then, if milady, and milord as well, help themselves freely to certain store- houses of albuminous nourishment duly made and provided by their less fortunate feathered neighbors? Or what wonder if Lady Mourning Dove and Sir Meadowlark are requisitioned for squabs and _ broilers? Let him that is without sin among us cast the first stone. Another brief, also, can be made out in defense of the Magpie. His deserted tenements are exceedingly useful both as retreats and as domiciles for certain other birds. Come to think of it, though, the ‘‘other birds,”’ Sparrow Hawk, Long-eared Owl, and Pacific Horned Owl, belong them- selves to the brigand list. Perhaps we would better not press that plea. One hesitates to recommend these vanishing fowls as cage-birds, not because they are not commendable, but because they are vanishing. Our legislature has placed wise restraints upon the use of native birds as captives. But those who will undertake the task of foster-parenthood seriously, and provide adequate quarters and abundant food for their pets—such will find the Magpie among their most interesting pensioners. An aviculturist of wide experience, Mr. H. R. Noack, of Oakland, secured two Yellow-billed Magpies which furnished him and his friends no end of sport. One of the birds, a male, ‘‘ John Henry,’’ developed a gratifying 42 The Yellow-billed Magpie gift of speech, and that without the silly tongue-cutting operation, which some people advocate. He called his master and his mate by name, and made a delightful nuisance of himself by calling in the neighbors on various and sundry, but quite unnecessary, occasions. Mr. Noack Taken in San Luis Obispo County Photo by the Author A WHITE OAK NESTING THE TWO MAGPIES’ NESTS WHICH THIS TREE CONTAINS ARE SCARCELY TO BE DISTINGUISHED FROM THE CLUMPS OF MISTLETOE continues: ‘‘Our stable is within fifty feet of the Magpie’s cage, and my brother, who was acting as hostler, was often about ready to swear when hitching up or currying the horse, when John Henry would cluck to the horse, ‘ck ck ck’, and then say ‘Get up, Peter, get up, get up,’ 45} The California Jays following immediately with ‘Whoa boy, whoa,’ and following with such a variation of ‘whoas’ and ‘get-ups’ and clucks, that the poor horse would not know what to do. ‘“‘One of the most amusing uses to which the Magpie puts his powers is to call the chickens—‘ chick, chick, chick, chick,’ and when they have run, eager and expectant, in the direction from which the sound comes, which is, naturally, the cage, to seize one by the comb or the back of the neck and pull out a few feathers or spill a little blood. An old game hen used to respond to his calls, and as soon as she received a tweak on the head would ruffle up and begin a regular fight through the wire netting. At this time John Henry exhibited himself at his best. While flying at the hen he would keep saying ‘Chick-chick-chick, come on, come on, Harry, Harry—get up, hello’. In fact he would go through almost his entire vocabulary while fighting and pulling out feathers.” No. 7 California Jay A. O. U. No. 481. Aphelocoma californica californica (Vigors). Description.—Adult in fresh (fall and winter) plumage: Pileum, hind-neck sides of neck, and breast (with interrupted borders of jugular white patch), wings,, upper tail-coverts, and tail, bright grayish blue (cadet blue to venetian blue); darker (deep cadet blue) on crown and nape; lighter (king’s blue) on wings and upper tail- coverts; tertials and rectrices finely and obscurely barred with darker; concealed webs of flight-feathers, and inner edges of rectrices, dusky; the shafts of wings and tail black; cheeks dark blue (hortense blue) changing to slaty black on auriculars; a super- ciliary line of white streaks; chin, throat, and chest, white, the plumage loose and streaked with bluish dusky; back and scapulars warm brownish gray (benzo brown), sometimes glossed with blue, paling with eruptive white and mingled bluish on wing; breast, immediately below jugular area, warm grayish brown, fading quickly to pale brownish gray on belly and sides; crissum pale bluish white; axillars and lining of wings mouse-gray, sometimes tinged with bluish. Bill and feet, black; iris, brown. Adult in worn (spring and summer) plumage: Blue wearing off on head, sides of breast, and tertials, with increasing exposure of dusky drab bases; brown of back fading irregularly to drab and light drab; underparts, duller, soiled and brownish. Young birds are much like adult in worn plumage, but duller,—blue scarcely discernible over the drabs of head, neck, and sides of breast. Length of adult male 292-318 (11.50- 12.50); average of 31 (after Swarth): wing 119.5 (4.70); tail 133.3 (5.24); culmen 25.6 (1.01); depth at nostril 8.5 (.33); tarsus 39.6 (1.56). Females average smaller. Recognition Marks.—Robin size; blue and gray coloration, without crest; underparts lighter than in A. woodhousei, and crissum white, or white tinged with bluish, instead of definitely blue. 44 Lina (Feros “f : California Jays following immediately with * Whoe boy, whoa,’ and following with such ‘2 variation of “wheas’ and ‘get-upe’ and chicks, that the poor fhorile would: not know what io ae. “One of the moet aniising uses to which the Magpie puts his powers is to call the chickens —“‘chivk, hi he, ole . chick,’ and when they have sun, eager aud expectant, in the 4 om irom which the sound comes, which is, naturally. > cage, to séian ces tay the comb of the back of the neck and pul! out a few feathers or aadli a bettie Higed, “An old game hen bs ae eos: gh she peceivind a tweak on the head wor 0 reat. uel Haigh te peaeitag ¢ vere é gaia ued the wire netting. At thie time Pen Tesh aehetaied nis best. While flying at the hen a wind Seen gayi “Lee pie e dg come on, come on, Harty. Harte---as4 oe : gould go through almost his eniire vecsimebace sin: Aplin ane! = ont leathers.’ Celiiorsia Jay AS SD Nae gy Apheloon@alirornined ay iorsica {Vigors). Description.—Aduii te fresk ath wre yeeinien plumage: Pileun:, hinder Hees of neck, and. breast {with interrupted sorders of jugular white pateh), w Aber upper fail-coverts, and tail, bright grayish biue (cadet blue to: venetian bhuet: darker (deep cadet blue) on crown aud nape; lighter (king's blue) on wings and upper tail- eoverts; tertials and rectrices finely and obscurely barred with darker; concealed webs of flight-feathers, and inner edges of rectrices, dusky; the shafts of wings and tail black: cheeks dark blue (hortense blue) changing to slaty black en auriculars; a super= ciliary line of white streaks; chin, threat, and chest, white, the plumage loose and — streaked with biuish dusky; back and scapulars warm brownish gray (benzo brown), sometimes glossed with blue, paling wich eruptive white and mingled bluish on wing: breast, unmediatciy below ; jugalar area, warm grayish brown, fading quickly to pate brownish gray on belly and sides. crissuei pele bluish white; axillars and lining of MAGS TROL YTEY sirens taped with tduish, Bill and fect, black; iris, brown. Adset ry Kin and hy sheer ee oc) Wis wearing off on head, sides of breast, me wertiats, “ate ts # ewoueere ch ateeks vals base; Drown of back fading Hiteriarhs to donk wed Tu arated wedkeeparta ol =. soiled aad brewnish. | Young Bines ark nea Whe hei oe aie aoe, Lae, eis “blue searcely discernible over Bees : iat eriesit), xan of adult male 292-318 (11.50 sare ak eg 70); tail 133.3 (5:24); culmen 25.6 > te i258). - Kemales average smalier. live and gray ecloration, withdut ‘crest; er ears ace see i de A. cept; crissum whe, or white tinged with rowing. Sangeet rads Hllan (Hr oa4gs - The California Jays Nesting.— Nest: Basally a crude criss-cross of long twigs; middle structure very scanty or wanting; lining, typically, of coiled rootlets, always of uniform der- ivation; innermost lining, or not, of coiled horsehair or matted cowhair; mlaced at any height in bush or tree. Eggs: 4-6, of two types: The green type, ground-color pale sulphate green to lichen green, spotted or blotched, chiefly at larger end, with deep olive or lincoln green; the “‘red’’ type, ground-color clear grayish white to lichen-green, spotted with warm sepia or bister to Rood’s brown. Av. of 140 eggs in the M.C. O. collection 27.4 x 20.3 (1.08 x .80); index 74. Extremes measure, 34.3 x 19 (1.35 X .75); index 57; and 24.4 x 20 (.96 x .79); index 82. Season: April, one brood. spoke Dp” Taken at Los Colibris Photo by the Author DISTRUSTFUL Range of Aphelocoma californica.—California, except the southeastern desert regions, Lower California, and western Oregon, north to and barely across the Columbia River in the neighborhood of Vancouver, Washington. Range of 4. c. californica.—‘‘A relatively narrow strip along the coast of Cali- fornia and northern Lower California; from the San Pedro Martir Mountains, Lower California, north on the coastal slope of California, west of the southern Sierras and the Coast ranges, through the San Diegan and Santa Cruz districts to the south side of San Francisco Bay’’ (Swarth). Authorities.—Vigors (Garrulus californicus), Zoology of Beechey’s Voyage, 1839, p. 21, pl. v. (original description; type from Monterey, Calif.); Gambel, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. iii., 1847, pp. 201-202 (crit.); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 374-377 (part), pl. v., fig. 17 (habits, nest and eggs); Merriam, F. A., Auk, vol. xiii., 1896, p. 120 (burying acorns); Beal, Biol. Sury. Bull., no. 34, 1910, pp. 50-56, pl. iii. (part) (food); Mailliard, J., Condor, vol. xiv., 1912, p. 42 (record of nests); Grinnell and Swarth, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. 10, 1913, pp. 261-262 (crit. re obscura); Swarth, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. 17, 1918, pp. 410-413, I fig. (crit.; range). 75) The California Jays No. 7a Grinnell’s California Jay A. O. U. No. 481 part. Aphelocoma californica immanis Grinnell. Description.—Similar to A. c. californica, but slightly larger and paler both above and below, the blue areas ‘‘Chapman’s blue”’ instead of cadet blue; the under tail-coverts usually pure white. Av. of 31: wing 125.9 (4.96); tail 138.5 (5.45); culmen 25.4 (1.00); depth at nostril 9.3 (.366); tarsus 40.8 (1.60). Range.— ‘Extreme southern Washington; in Oregon those valleys lying between the Cascades and the Coast Ranges, and south in California through the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and the Sierra Nevada. East to the Warner Mountains and the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada.”’ (Swarth). Authorities.—Newberry (Cyanocitta californica), Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. vi., pt. iv., 1857, p. 85; Bendire, Life Hist. N. Am. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 374-377 (part) (habits, nest and eggs); Beal, Biol. Surv. Bull. no. 34, 1910, pp. 50-56, pl. iii., (part) (food); Grinnell, Condor, vol. xili., 1911, p. 109 (relation to small birds); Oberholser, Condor, vol. xix., 1917, pp. 94, 95 (taxonomy); Swarth, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. 17, 1918, pp. 415-417, 1 fig. (desc.; range; crit.). No. 7b Swarth’s California Jay A. O. U. No. 481 part. Aphelocoma californica oocleptica Swarth. Description.—Like A. c. californica, but averaging slightly larger. Av. of 7: wing 125.4 (4.94); tail 136.7 (5.37); culmen 25.8 (1.02); depth at nostril 9.1 (.36); tarsus 41.5 (1.63). Range.— ‘The Coast region of northern California, west from Mount Diablo and the Coast ranges. North to Humboldt Bay, south to the Golden Gate and the east side of San Francisco Bay.’’ (Swarth). Authorities.—Baird (Cyanocitta californica), Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. ix., 1858, p. 585; Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 374-377 (part) pl. v., fig. 15 (habits, nest and eggs); Mailliard, J., Condor, vol. ii., 1900, pp. 58-59, 94-95, 126 (habits); Cohen, Osprey, vol. vi., 1902, pp. 1-6, 1 fig. (habits); Mazlliard, J. W., Condor, vol. xiv., 1912, p. 42 (nesting); Swarth, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. 17, 1918, pp. 413-415, I fig. (description of oocleptica; range). CALIFORNIA is the land of unfailing contrasts. Hot or cold, wet or dry, green or brown, low or high, you may order what you will (so you order your own movements to correspond), and lo, it is yours within the hour. But most striking of all Californian contrasts, is that ever recurring one between civilization and the wilderness. Does your soul abhor crowds, then escape to the wilderness forthwith and find solace. On a New Year’s Day, when Pasadena was threatening to celebrate its annual Festival of Roses, the writer with a nature-loving companion fled to the hills, and at the very moment when the customary queen was being crowned amid the huzzas of a perspiring and dishevelled populace some seven miles away, we were ogling a band of deer as they picked their way daintily over the steep slopes of chaparral. Finer yet was a contrast which met my immigrant eyes at Berkeley gO The California Jays some thirteen yearsago. Having dutifully done the honors of our imposing State educational plant, civilization’s finest fruitage, I took leave of my punctilious host at the Greek Theater, sacred to the memory of our immortal Hearst, and within ten minutes had regained Eden, an Adamless and Eveless spot, hidden in a curve of the hills, choked with greenery, and where only the birds murmured. And, sure enough, there came the guardian angel (?) (I had entered by an unused trail, it seemed )—or was it a blue-coated gendarme noisily brandishing a flaming sword? ‘‘ Jayick! jayick!’’ It is he! It is he! The sweet, authentic devil, the California Jay! He, the malaprop, the impertinent, the sly wag, thief, scoundrel, outcast, jackal of the bush, bon homme libre, as innocent as morning, as industrious as noon, as wicked as night. C'est le dernier des Oiseaux. But there is California for you! Within the academic shades the grave tread of the masters, masters of philosophies and of arts and of men. A shade removed, this master of obliquities, ruling his kingdom of the untrod. The California Jay occupies a commanding position in the life of the chaparral and of oak-covered hillsides, throughout California. By ““commanding’’ we do not mean exactly that everything is ordered accord- ing to the Blue Jay’s will; but it is certain that little takes place without his knowledge; and, as we shall see, presently, he is undoubtedly the chief biological control factor in the distribution of bird-life throughout the area specified. The abundance of the jays and the thoroughness or uniformity of their distribution within any given area will astonish one who has not given close attention to the matter. Try this test: A7ss the moistened hand in such diligent fashion as to produce what Coues has so well called a screeping sound. This under a little practice sounds like the distress call of a wounded bird, and a distress note is the rally call of all jays. If you are in jay country at all, first one and then another of the blue-coated rascals will come slipping up through the shrubbery, until you may have a dozen of them poking and peering to discover the source of the commotion. To perfect the play rigid immobility is nec- essary on the part of the student. Birds detect motion before they do color or form, and at the first discovery of man’s presence there is a vigorous outcry and a gradual edging away on the part of the crestfallen birds. But whatever the fashion of your luck at that particular siren station, you will have found at least that California Jays exist almost everywhere within earshot in suitable country. The ‘“‘screeping’’ test is also a good school for the study of Jay manners. Furtiveness, curiosity, impudence, drollery,—all these qualities come out. And Oh! the noise of it! The Jay’s ordinary alarm note is 47 The California Jays an astonishing vocal outbreak, dzweep or dzweep, with which the groves are brought up standing. No masquerader at Mardi Gras ever sprung such a cacophonic device upon a quiveringly expectant public. Dzweep zweep—it curdles the blood, as it is meant to do. It costs the bird an effort, no doubt, for the whole body moves in sympathy. Could any- thing be more saucy than the mocking bow of the California Jay, as he dips his head and jerks his tail and asks, ‘‘Who the devil are you?’’ And there he shifts and scrapes and challenges until nervousness gets the better of valor, and he is off to a neighboring cover with exaggerated flirt and fluff of wing and pumping tail. He is Puck-of-the-Woods, but not, alas! Robin Goodfellow. Without doubt this Jay takes a conscious delight in mischief-making. If he sees a company of sparrows feeding in a little open space, he will slip up quietly, under cover, then plump down suddenly with a screech which sends the little fellows flying like bursting shrapnel. And the delighted Jay stands there like a drum-major before a cinematograph. “Oh, if Mary could see me now!”’ Mr. Mailliard has told us!, most entertainingly, of some jays which took to teasing the family cats at San Geronimo. It was not enough for a jay to steal up behind one of the cats while it was at supper, strike the hapless pussy a smart blow on the tail, and then, when tabby turned to defense, make off shrieking with the meat, cleverly snatched up. The cats got onto this, and not only kept their tails decorously between their legs, but continued to mind their muttons while the chewing was good. But if ever a jay caught a cat napping, with its tail partially extended, it approached with eyes snapping in delight. The situation had to be studied carefully and noise- lessly, with head cocked first on one side and then upon the other. Fin- ally, when the most vulnerable spot had been decided upon, the jay would give the poor tail a vicious peck, and then fly “‘screeching with joy”’ to the nearest bush. But if the ‘‘Blue Jay”’ is active in the pursuit of mischief, he knows also how to become passive and to let Nature disclose her secrets to him. Especially in nesting time ‘‘watchful waiting’’ becomes the winning policy for the Blue Jay. Accordingly, he posts himself in some conspic- uous place, a tree-top or a telephone wire, and looks and looks and looks. At such times he may be the very picture of innocence, or patience on a monument, until one is moved to ask him as the traveller did of the Tennesseean, ‘‘What do you do with yourself all day?’’ And the answer might be, ‘‘Wa-al, sometimes I sets and thinks, and sometimes I just sets.’’ But the Blue Jay knows exactly what he is about, and every little bird of the forest knows that he knows—and shudders. 1“The Condor,” Vol. VI., p. 94, July, 1904. 48 The California Jays Although such an industrious creature when he, or she, isn’t “‘settin’”’, the jay’s flight is slow and labored. Extensive flights are never undertaken, and it would probably be im- possible for a Cali- fornia Jay to fly from the mainland to the Farallones, for ex- ample. The time of year or the nature of the season has a good deal to do with the jay’s ACENWLENCS, Bin Gl especially with the publicity thereof. As the time of its own nesting approaches, the jay falls silent, and the adroitness with which this bird will let himself be for- gotten, is truly amaz- Fee tee ing. The birds may THE ‘‘DIGGER”’ PINE IS A CHARACTERISTIC TREE OF THE SOUTHWESTERN be nesting in your own Coa ANCES front yard; and now that you think of it, you do recall having seen the male bird pottering about on two or three occasions. But as for the California Jay of fame, he is dead. But when the birds have got by with it, when the youngsters, fullfledged, have joined the piratical push, and especially after the mid-summer molting season, then look out for noise! Caution is thrown to the winds, and the world becomes a vast screeching-ground, made only for jays to practice in. The ‘‘Blue Jay,” too, is a faithful chronicler of wet and dry. When the face of nature has become parched, when great heat fissures appear in the dobe soil, and when the cattle are quarreling feebly for a little wisp of last year’s straw, the jay, too, falls silent. Dust is a poor lubricant for even raucous throats, and what villain could exult in such universal drought? 49 Taken in San Luis Obispo County Pholo by the Author The California Jays But oh, how sweet is the smell of returning moisture! and how grateful the flick of tiny raindrops on the face! All nature is ‘‘swelling wisibly’’ with sap and satisfaction, and life begins over again in joyous earnest. The Meadowlarks exult, of course, and the lordly males chuckle, “T told you so,” to their doubting mates. Bush-Tits lisp with treble emphasis, and, if it be early spring, the Robins go dashing about excitedly, packing their Alaska trunks, and bidding their friends good-bye. But it is the California Jay, the “‘ Blue Jay,’’ whose ear-splitting voice has most notably revived. We can almost forgive him all his mischief for the hearty, saucy stridor of his rain-wet tones. But—but—mischief, thy name is Blue Jay. It falls, now, to the writer’s unhappy lot to rehearse the sins of the California Jay, and surely, the recording angel himself has no more laborious task—unless, as we strongly suspect, the office keeps an extra clerk on this job. To see our jay munching an acorn, which is, by most accounts, his proper food, one would extol his exemplary virtue. [One correspondent, indeed, grumbles because the jay is robbing the hogs thereby; but we'll let that pass. We're not as hoggish as that yet.| Whack, whack, whack, goes the jay’s intrepid beak, until Sir Acorn with a groan yields up his substance. Mast, accord- ing to Beal, forms 38 per cent of this Jay’s food. Acorns are gathered and hoarded for future use also, not methodically, as in the case of the Cali- fornia Woodpecker, but still laboriously. Casual hidey holes in bark or broken limbs or rotting stumps are utilized, with now and then a more ambitious attempt to fill space, as in the case of Mark Twain’s immortal bird. If the cache gets wormy, so much the better. So much better, in fact, that some observers have feigned to believe the birds, with conscious art, are preparing worm cultures. Akin to this is their habit, well attested, of burying nuts, especially almonds, in the earth. Doubtless the bird intends to make inquiry later of his buried talent; but doubtless, also, this miserly trick has served Nature’s purpose now and then in producing new trees. Speaking of almonds, the depredations of the California Jay are such as to make the orchardist weep. Outlying trees are fairly stripped, and what the birds cannot eat they carry away. The case does not seem to be so bad with English walnuts, for although some are eaten at immature stages, the shell soon becomes too hard to interest the jays. As a pilferer of fruit, again, the jay has few rivals and no superiors. He is at it early and late. Nothing daunts him. Shot guns? Who would not run such risk for a juicy ripe cherry! ‘‘Bing”’ or bang, it is all one to a brave heart. Mr. Beal, the economic expert, tells of observations made on a small prune orchard, placed where a small ravine debouched from the wooded hills. “‘The fruit was just ripening and a continuous line of jays was 50 PR DEAE r But Ae x dweet is the asell of neturning moisture! stl how Ce ect the flick of Gay raipiireps on the face! Al nature is ‘ wisibly * with sap atl setistactm, and Wife beyins over again in joyous - Die Meddemeiarks exutt, of corse, and the lordly males chuckle, “told Siu oo” ts thie doniieing mates. Bush-Tits lisp with treble emphasis, and 7 & be early cjg, the Robins go dashing about excitedly, acking viel? Alaska trunks, and bidding their friends good- bye, But it je the alilornia fey, the “Blue Jay,” whose ear-splitting voice has most notably nevived. We bee almost forgive him all his mischieffor the _ heavtix. sieex stridor of his rain-wet. tones. Es ayeanmeNed, vey same is Blue Jay, It falls, now, to the “a ne £0 rehesrae 1B sina of the California Jay, and surely, ree tweet himself has 2, more laborious task—unless, as we: cet spect, the oflice keeps an extra clerk on this job. To see our ib Geechee an acorn, which ay most accounts. his proper food, one iwandd extol his exemplary virtue, (Cre be haguacrns indeed, grumbles - because the jay is robbing the hogeghed ries bare we'll lee that ¢ pass. We're not as hoggish as that yet] WF Abc, wherk. wes the jay's intrepid beak, until Sir Acorm with a gree GloSis ny His sabesance. Mast, aecord- ing to Beal, Perma 48 percent er et Ss iy ¢ foxxd. Acorns are gathered and boarded fur hiturt use mbes. slot reetBadically. ax ia the case of the Cale fornia Woodpecker, but still labomuply. Casual hidey holes in bark or broken limbs or rotting stumps ¢ wtilized, with now aul then a mare ambitious attempt to fill space, aSdnthe case of Mark Twain's inimortal ” bird. If the cache gets wormy. sgim@ich the fetter. So much better, in fact, that some observers have teift cf to believe the birds, with conscious att, are preparing worm cultures. aS . Akin to this is their habit, 2 gttested, of burying nuts, especially almonds, in the earth. Doubtiesathe bird intends to make inquiry later ef his buried talent; but doubtless, Salso, this miserly trick has served Nature's Hurpose now and then a] oducing new trees. ee of almends, the deppaigtions of the California Jay are such ‘as te make the ofchardist weep. = DiBtlying trees are fairly stripped, and what the birds cannot eat they carey Sway. The case does not seem te he so bad with Haghsh wainuis, i “itn some art eaten al nats stapes. the shell soon heeomes too Bard tut atonal 4 te HENS. oe pi ay otfruit, agaia, the jey Ras feewe risils and ac sia wae ged jate. Notiey dears hie, Orhot gues! yisk fora quley sige cleery) “Bing” or bang, risa oe vee ieeave PEN We, Weul, thr sctoeds exyest, tells of cheerreiiuns wade on a small ene orchard. placed where 4 amall ravine debuted fiom the wooded: « tie “Phe iruit wae Bae reening ad a comtenres ine of jaye was The California Jays seen passing from the hills down through the ravine to the orchard, while a return line, each jay bearing a prune, was flying up the ravine to the woods, where, probably, the fruit was secreted and left to rot. * * * Several hours later the jays were still at work.”’ Grain is gleaned in a desultory fashion wherever it is exposed: but it is only in early spring that real damage is done. Mr. Joseph Mailliard! observed their depredations closely at San Geronimo in Marin County, and he concluded that it was the softness of peas or corn in the sprouted state which appealed so strongly to the jay’s taste. ‘‘I have had acres of peas that were sown in the end of March, to be cut green for feed when large enough, practically destroyed by these birds. * * I remem- ber one spring when a patch of about an acre and a half was sown with a mixture of peas and oats, and the peas were pulled up as fast as sprouted, by the jay, so that the crop consisted of oats alone. In this instance the land was bordered by a growth of trees that made a fine shelter, to which the birds could retreat when disturbed. I shot over forty in one afternoon on this occasion, and a good many on succeeding days, but they soon became so wary that it was impossible to get another shot after one was killed—and yet the crop was destroyed.”’ On another occasion it was some late grown oats they took to. “They would dig away with their bills a little earth from the stalk where it just showed through, get a good grip and pull. If the stalk broke they would try the next one. When the whole plant came up by the roots they would jump to the nearest lump of earth and pick the kernel out of the husk, leaving husk, root and stalk lying on the lump. * * Shooting one occasionally would cause them all to fly to the nearest trees, but they would be at it again in a few minutes, with some on watch.” But your jay is no vegetarian. He annexes bugs and slugs asmatter of course, indulges a frog or a lizard now and then, and even aspires to mice and shrews. His long suit, however, is the destruction of eggs and young birds. This is his real function and raison d’etre. Beginning with the modest fruit of the hen, or the equally humble quail, he works up through successive deglutitive stages until he can boast a discriminating preference for Phainopeplas’ eggs, or Hutton Vireo babies. Black-headed Grosbeaks’ eggs are a staple in season, while Rufous-crowned Sparrows, Bell Sparrows, California Purple Finches, and Lutescent Warblers pay due toll to the epicurean fancy. But I am getting ahead of my story. Let us consider the case of the poultry raiser first. Mr. Beal again? is expert witness for the prosecution: “He is a persistent spy upon domestic fowls, and well knows the meaning 1**The Condor,”’ Vol. II., May, 1900, p. 58. 2"Birds of California in Relation to the Fruit Industry,”’ Part. II., p. 50, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture Biol. Surv. Bull. No. 34, 1910. Sl The California Jays of the cackle of ahen. A woman whose home was at the mouth of a small ravine told the writer that one of her hens had a nest under a bush a short distance up the ravine from the cottage. A jay found this out, and every day when the hen went on her nest the jay would perch on a nearby tree. As soon as the cackle of the hen was heard, both woman and bird rushed to get the egg, but many times the jay reached the nest first and secured the prize. A man living in the thickly settled outskirts of a town said that jays came every morning and perched on some large trees that overhung his barnyard, where the hens had their nests, and that it was necessary for some member of the family to be on the look- out and start at the first sound of the hen’s voice or a jay would get the egg. “A still worse trait of the jay was described by a young man en- gaged in raising poultry on a ranch far up a canyon near wooded hills. When his white leghorn chicks were small the jays would attack and kill them by a few blows of the beak, and then peck open the skull and eat the brains. In spite of all endeavors to protect the chicks and shoot the jays his losses were serious. ”’ If this sort of thing befalls a closely protect- ed fowl, and one in which man has a vital eco- nomic stake, what hap- pens, think you, to the children of the wild which have no protector? om My own belief, based on YOUNG CALIFORNIA JAY we Photo by Finley and Bohlman The California Jays sound experience, is that within the normal range of the California Jay, fully one-half of the eggs laid by Passerine birds are destined, either as eggs or chicks, to find their way into the blue jay’s maw. I know that there are those, and some of them high in authority, who will sharply challenge this statement. It is a familiar, and perhaps not altogether discreditable human fallacy, to refuse to believe ill of any creature. We recall (with mingled pity and contempt in this case) those who to the last refused to credit the reports of German atrocities committed during the Great War. Testimony, concrete evidence, had for them no value. The will to disbelieve was unconquerable. So it is with some of the friends of the Blue Jay. Some, indeed, will claim that our photogravure is “faked.” But the fact is that the California Jay is the most gifted, persistent, and methodical destroyer of bird-life that Nature has ever evolved. Nest- robbing is not the exception, the occasional crime of jaydom. ‘The jay, rather, is a professional thug, and thugee is the rule of the clan. In this role the jay is feared and hated by every other bird, and he is the well-deserving butt of excoriations, vituperations, and personal assaults without number. It is worthy of note in this connection that the jay is not much of a fighter. He “‘takes punishment,”’ or else flees before the avenging fury of a Vireo, a Titmouse, or a Pewee. All is, he never gives up; so that by hook or by crook he almost always manages to secure the contents of a bird’s nest, if accessible, and if its whereabouts is known to him. In this pursuit the jay not only displays a rare ingenuity, but a satanic fastidiousness as well. He marks the building of a Phainopepla’s nest and notes its progress from time to time with an approving eye, but he defers the sacking until the young are of just the right age, say, two days old. Again, he displays a devilish recklessness, for he, too, is an apostle of Schrecklichkeit. If the nest is empty, he pulls it to pieces in disgust; or if it is full, he gobbles the contents and then flings out the lining in boisterous contempt. One bird in sardonic mood returned to a Phainopepla’s nest, which he had just robbed (within fifty feet of our porch roof), and deposited a half-eaten acorn in lieu of babies. In view of this destructiveness it becomes of interest to estimate the total burden of taxation which the bird world is called upon to bear each season. The subject is a difficult one, and the results obtained by estimate can only represent the order of magnitude of the actual figures. We will do our “‘figuring”’ in the open, so that if the reader differs in any of our assumptions, the degree of modification deemed necessary may be apparent in the result. California has an area of 155,980 square miles. Although nearly one-fourth of this area is ‘‘Upper Sonoran,’’ and as such suitable for occupation, I allow only one-tenth, or 15,598 square OS) The California Jays Taken at Los Coltbris Photo by the Author INQUISITIVE CALIFORNIA JAY IN PEPPER TREE miles, as the effective range of A phelocoma californica. 15,598 square miles is 9,982, 720 acres; and if we allow a range of twenty acres for each pair of jays, we have a total population of 499,136 pairs. If we allow only one set of eggs or nest of birds to each pair of jays per diem for a period of two months, we shall be well within the mark of actuality. Yet that will give us in a season a total destruction of 29,948,160 nests, or, say, 100,000,000 eggs — in Cali- fornia alone! Yet in the face of this destruction, which, somehow Nature does manage to cope with, there are those, over-zealous souls misusing the name of Audubon, who are disposed to grumble at the infinitesi- mal toll levied annually in the name of Science. Why, if every holder of a scien- tific permit in California — there are about two hundred of us — were to kill a single pair of blue jays each season, the total account with nature would be more than squared. If two pairs apiece were killed, we should be benefactors. But how, you ask, does Nature stand this terrific strain? Well, there is no denying that it is terrific. Yet Nature is wonderfully fertile. We who idolize the birds are apt to forget that the ‘“‘breed- ing cycle”’ is, after all, no such sacred or significant thing as is the rearing of a human family. The breasts of Nature are ample, and the sorrows of her children are short-lived. To offset this annual loss caused by the jays, other birds have to nest twice, or three times in a season, that’s all. Doubtless if the jays and all other destructive agencies were gradually removed, a single nesting per season might come to suffice. But at that it is doubtful whether the sum of avian happiness would be thereby increased. Viewed dispassionately, there- IF The California Jays fore, the situation is not one for alarm. The jays have been here for along time, longer than we have even — say for a million years longer. Per- haps the average adjustment of Nature’s forces has been pretty well attended to. Certainly we shall not set about the destruction of all jays. That would assure a violent reaction of some sort, and might entail infinite hardship. But I agree with Beal! that a reduction of, say, one-half in the number of the now ubiquitous California Jay might be a good thing. If ever an oologist had a clear commission for ‘‘intensive study”’ of birds’ eggs, it exists in the case of the California Jay. He at least cannot complain when his nest is robbed. Accordingly, we rejoice at the presence in our State of some fine series of California Jays’ eggs. Moreover, no fitter subject for intensive study could be chosen, for the eggs of the California Jay are abundant, highly variable, and of undeniable beauty. It is the variability of these eggs which interests us most; for in the consideration of almost any series two types present themselves, the “red’’ and the green. This dichromatism of the egg is a prominent factor in tropical bird life, notably that of India, where it occasionally becomes ¢vichromatism; but Aphelocoma californica furnishes about the only instance, certainly the clearest instance (save for the circumpolar Murre), in America. The red type is much the rarer. In this the ground color varies from clear grayish white to the normal green of the prevailing type; while the markings—fine dots or spots or, rarely, confluent blotches—are of a warm sepia, bister, verona brown, or Rood’s brown. The ground color of the green type varies from pale sulphate green to lichen green, and the markings from deep olive to Lincoln green. In the Museum of Compara- tive Oology we have a set kindly furnished by Mr. H. W. Carriger, whose markings are reduced to the palest subdued freckling of pea-green. In another set, of the red type, fine Mars brown markings of absolute uni- formity cover the egg; while the eggs of another set are covered as to their larger ends with an olive-green cloud cap, which leaves the remainder of the specimen almost free of markings. The precise significance of this high degree of variability is not clear to our imperfect knowledge. It is one of those obscure Mendelian characters whose genesis we cannot trace, but whose continuance along definite lines of heredity we can confidently predict. We know now, for example, that these jays breed true to their own type year after year; that the owners of the coveted red type will present the enterprising oologist with another set precisely similar, if their nest is found on a 1Op. cit. p. 56. Wy) The California Jays succeeding year. We hazard that this high variability in the egg attests a certain virility, or adaptability, in the parent stock. Various incipient strains are held in leash by cross breeding, so that the stock as a whole has been ‘‘ Americanized.”’ The significance of these interweaving strands of heredity is, however, strongly hinted at in the glaring exception which occurs on Santa Cruz Island. The eggs of the Santa Cruz Island Jay, Aphelocoma insularis (as elsewhere recited), are almost absolutely uniform in coloration. Presumably a single pair of birds was accidentally stranded on that island, and their progeny exhibit a single type of egg. Whether the other characters which the Island Jay displays were ontologically con- comitant with, or implicit in a certain type of egg, or whether they are, rather, the product of recent development, we are unable to say; but the former is at least a tenable hypothesis. The nests of the California Jay are also highly variable. Not only do they vary with locality and available material, but their differences express the individuality of the builders. Some are very compact, rigid structures. Others are flimsy and ill-kempt summer houses. In general, one may say, however, that upon a careless mass of crisscrossed sticks, a deep substantial cup of rootlets, or horsehair, or mingled roots and hair, is imposed. A phelocoma never uses a mud cup for mid structure, as Cyanocitta invariably does. The lining varies delightfully, but is largely dependent, it is only fair to say, upon the breed of horses or cattle affected on the nearest ranch. So we have nests with white, black, bay, and sorrel linings, not to mention dapple gray and pinto. One fastidious bird of my acquaintance, after she had constructed a dubious lining of mottled material, discovered a coal black steed overtaken by mortality. New furnishings were ordered forthwith. The old lining was pitched out bodily, and the coal black substitute installed immediately, to the bird’s vast satisfaction—and mine. Taking the country over, nests built in oak trees probably outnumber all others combined, yet the component members of the chaparral, ceano- thus, chamissal, and the rest, must do duty in turn, and all species of the riparian sylva as well. The thick-set clumps of mistletoe are very hospitable to this bird, and since this occurs on oaks, cottonwoods, and, occasionally, digger pines, it follows that jayheim is found there also. As to height, that depends upon persecution. The birds will nest prefer- ably at moderate heights,—three to ten feet up, in gooseberry, elder, or willow; but I have taken them at forty feet in oak trees, where the birds had found it necessary to secure the maximum of local cover. The sitting bird usually flushes in silence, and with the least possible demonstration. If the visitor has not satisfied his curiosity or his cupid- 56 The California Jays ity, however, within five or ten minutes, the bird summons her mate, and together they proceed to denounce the order of the day. Beside the ordinary clamor, dzweep or jooreet jooreet, and the alternating klewk klewk Rilwek klwek (akin to the shook shook shook notes of C. stelleri), the attendant parents give vent to a soft clucking note, evidently a note of anxiety, although its quality is such as to belie the implication. These notes are often uttered with scarcely appreciable intervals, a mere droning pulsation, made with a closed beak—indeed, with scarcely a visible motion of the throat. If we men- tion here alsoa peculiar waggish creaking note, a subdued, toneless arrrrrrk, we shall have completed an inventory of Aphelocoma’s major wocall ac= complishments. If speech fails, how- ever, the birds give further vent to their indignation in the peculiar fashion of : : Taken in Los Angeles County Photo by Donald R. Dickey assaulting the THE AGE OF INNOCENCE neighboring trees. The bark is picked and shattered furiously, or the leaves are plucked off in whirlwind fashion. As a subsitute for bad language this has much to recommend it. It goes without saying that Mr. and Mrs. Aphelocoma are models of conjugal fidelity, as well as exemplary parents. It always does stump the righteous to see the wicked observing the rules of the game in these essential matters, but they do. Mr. A. will proffer his spouse a mangled Chipping Sparrow chick, dripping with warm blood, with the same gentle courtesy which you would show in serving a portion of chicken to your lady love. Blue-jay children, I take it, are unusually well behaved, even if their tender nurture has left a woodside mourning. And for these children the jay has caressive and crooning notes which take hold of the very heart of comfort, notes of fond endearment which have come down 57 The Santa Cruz Jay the ages unmodified, whether by mouth of saint or mug of sinner. A truce to thee, then, old boy blue! Sweet villain! No doubt we'll fight again as we've fought before. And, beyond all peradventure, we'll confiscate those little eggles of yours as fast as found, be they on topmost branch or midmost tangle. But meanwhile, and between whiles, here’s to thee, cunning, agile, inconsistent bird! Wag-in-feathers, Jack-o’- dreams, rake-hell—Oh, I’ve a whole thesaurus to hurl at thee yet. Here, take the book! Bang! No. 8 Santa Cruz Jay A. O. U. No. 481.1. Aphelocoma insularis Henshaw. Synonyms.—IsLanp JAy. SANTA Cruz ISLAND JAY. Description.—Similar to A. californica (of which it is undoubtedly a localized race), but averaging larger, and with bill much larger (about 45 per cent bulkier, al- though relatively narrower); coloration richer and deeper; the blue element brighter (i. e. with less of neutral gray) and deeper (between Rood’s blue and prussian blue); back and scapulars dusky drab; under tail-coverts pale blue (light cadet-blue); thighs tinged with blue. Plumage changes as in California Jay. Length 336 (13.25) or over; wing 135 (5.70); tail 148 (5.83); bill 33 (1.30); depth at nostril 11.4 (.49); tarsus 46.5 (1.83). Nesting.— Nest: a bulky mass of interlaced twigs of live oak tree, into which is set neatly and deeply a cup of coiled rootlets with some admixture of grasses and. rarely, horsehair; placed at moderate heights in live oak or lesser tree. Eggs: 3 or 4, rarely 5, according to character of the season; in appearance remarkably uniform; ground color light bluish green (microcline green fading to pale niagara green), lightly spotted with olive (lincoln green to deep grape-green). Av. size of 140 specimens in the Museum of Comparative Oology: 29 x 21.3 (1.14 x .84); index 73.7. Range 25.4- 31.7 (1.00-1.25) by 19.6-22.6 (.77-.89). Extreme examples 30.5 x 19.6 (1.20 x .77), index 64.1; 25.6 x 21.8 (1.01 x .86); index 85.1. Season: March 10-April 10; one brood. Range.—Santa Cruz Island. Authorities —Henshaw (Cyanocitta floridana var. californica), Rept. Orn. Wheeler Surv., 1876, p. 253 (part); Henshaw, Auk, vol. iii., 1886, pp. 452-453 (de- scription of imsularis); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 379-380 (habits, nests and eggs); Mailliard, J., Condor, vol. ii., 1900, p. 42 (measurements); Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 68 (general); Howell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 12, 1917, pp. 68-69 (general account; synonymy); Swarth, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. 17, 1918, pp. 418-419, 1 fig. (critical). “BLUE JAYS” of whatever type have a faculty of making them- selves very much at home wherever found, whether in the firry depths of a Siskiyou forest, or in the fervent chaparral of Temecula; but of all 58 A Silhouette Santa Cruz Island Jay Print by Fedora E. D. Brown Negative and cutout by the duthor The Santa Cruz Jay recorded spots where the jaybird doth dwell Santa Cruz Island is un- doubtedly the choicest. Here is Blue Jay paradise. And the Jay of Santa Cruz is almost an angel? Well, no; but he is somewhat less an imp. Early isolated from his mainland fellows, by what happy chance we know not, in an equable climate, with abundant and varied food, and measurably secure from human persecution, the Santa Cruz Island Jay has become a more beautiful, a more robust, and a much more demure bird than its co-type, A. californica. This gem of the islands belongs to him by unquestioned title, and he has no need to defend his claim by frantic protest or scurrilous abuse. This demure quality shows itself to best advantage when his nest is threatened, for it is then, if ever, that a bird’s soul is tried. Yet I have spent an hour beside a nestful of jay babies with never a word of protest from the closely attendant parents, beyond a mellow, and almost inaudible choop choop. This, and the sound of pecking on tree limbs, for even this gentle bird employs this familiar corvine device for relieving Taken on Santa Cruz Island Photo by the Author A PATIENT MODEL 359 The Santa Cruz Jay Taken on Santa Cruz Island Photo by the Author THE SENTINEL surcharged feelings. But this jay is capable of vigorous ex- pression, and the variety and suggestive affinity of its notes are worth consideration. There is, first, the Aphelocomine scold- ing cry of common use, but this is fuller, rounder, and much less harsh. Then there is a djay djay note which distinctly recalls that of Cyanocitta stellert. Lastly, this note is so modified and accelerated as to strikingly simulate the rickety rack rack rack or shack shack shack shack shack of the Magpies. I know the Magpie’s voice better than the baying of a hound, but I have leaped to my feet and reached for the glasses at this jack jack call before realizing that there are no Magpies on Santa Cruz Island. And lastly, again (a preacher’s “‘lastly’’ may be repeated indefinitely, so why not an ornithologist’s?), some sotto voce musings lead me to believe that the bird is capable of real song. Exquisite warb- lings have I heard at a rod’s remove, so delicate that a Wren’s outburst would have drowned them utterly, but so musical that I had hoped the bird was only tuning his strings in prepa- ration for a rhapsody. All these comparisons lead one to ask where this most for- tunate of Blue Jays got his gifts. He has seen neither magpies nor crested jays for ages. Are not these startling variants of song really primal? Is not this the authentic heir of the original cyano-corvine traits, narrowed and singled elsewhere 60 The Santa Cruz Jay by reason of excessive competition? Quien sabe? But he is a very gifted bird; and I warrant he makes a merry hullabaloo after the ban of silence, which affects all Blue Jays in the nesting season, is lifted. The Santa Cruz Jay nests early. The last week in March is the height of the season, counting always by fresh eggs. We have found them as early as March toth. For nesting sites the California live oaks are leading favorites, but the birds nest indifferently throughout the scrub (It is hardly considered proper to speak of ‘“‘chaparral”’ on this island, because the sheep keep the lesser undergrowths cleaned out) to the tops of the ranges. Manzanita, Christmas berry, holly-leaf cherry, ironwood, mountain mahogany, scrub and Wislizenus oaks, and Monterey pines, all serve as hosts, therefore, with little preference save for shade. Nests, although bulky, sometimes being as large as a crow’s, are placed at moderate heights, usually from eight to twelve feet; and are, habitually, so well made that they may be lifted clean of their setting without injury. The jays evidently have assigned beats, or ranges, of mutual adjustment, and they are very loyal to a chosen locality at nesting time. Thus, the nests of succeeding years are grouped in a single tree, or scattered narrowly in a small section of the scrub. It is in the uni- form coloring of the egg that the Santa Cruz lisilamel lasy most surely reveals its isolation, and its consequent inbreed- ing. The ground color of fresh eggs is a beautiful light bluish-green 222300 (microcline green), Taken on Santa Cruz Island Photo by the Author and this is lightly A NESTFUL OF SANTA CRUZ JAYS OI The Santa Cruz Jay Taken on Santa Cruz Island Photo by the Author “ALMOST AN -ANGEL” PORTRAIT OF SANTA CRUZ JAY 62 spotted with olive (Lincoln green to deep grape green). The green element fades quickly, however, so that eggs advanced in incubation are of a pale Niagara green ground color. Among a dozen sets there are no color variants worth mentioning; nor have | seen a single example of the ‘“‘red’’ type, which is so pleas- ing a feature of the mainland form. In size the eggs of the Santa Cruz form average slightly larger than those of A. californica. Second sets are prepared with amazing alacrity if the first are destroyed. In two cases we noted complete sets of five thirteen days after the first had been taken. This quick recovery was the more remarkable in one instance, because the first set had been near hatching, and the re- productive organs of the birds were, therefore, in a state of quiescence. One speaks without apo- logy of ‘‘collecting”’ jays’ eggs, for the jay is a master oologist himself. Doubtless he owes much of his sleek corpulence to a diet of Dusky Warblers’ eggs; and as for those pleas- ing, but not humanly seduc- tive ovals known as Mourn- ing Doves’ eggs, they are a thing almost unknown in jay territory. The poultry keep- er, too, at the “big ranch”’ Tae Santa Crus Jay spotted with olive (Lincoln green to deep grape green). The green element fades quickly, however, so that eges advanced in incubation are of a pale Niagara green ground color. Among a dozen sets there are no color variants worth mentioning; nor have I Seen a single example of the id “se” type, which is so pleas- ree safttive of the mainland ; in size the eggs of the Cruz form average ‘ larger than those of we prepared mee beige ne, nee ¢ eg es ary Sah by ne a Sorstie f assane ee Me payative Goto gy tohune, Etste re- oroductive organs of the birds were, therefore, in a state of quiescence, One speaks without apo- + i logy of “collecting” jays’ eggs, $ for the jay i a master oologist lumesif. ‘iaubtles: be caves ; much Gol hits sleek corpalenoe io. 4 chet o€ ing: Warblers’ nd as for those pleas- ee t humanby seduc- ave ovals known as Mourn. — ing Dowes’ eogs, they are a Sie oe Hak Patviyte tutier thing almost uaknown in jay ; teres, territory. The poultry keep- te, too, at the “big ranch” The Woodhouse Jay has had to wage unceasing warfare on the Blue Jays — or rather, the ‘“Corbales,’’ for he speaks Italian —in order that El Superintendente may have hens’ eggs for breakfast. No. 9 Woodhouse’s Jay A. O. U. No. 480. Aphelocoma woodhousei (Baird). Description.—Somewhat similar to A. californica, but pattern of color less accentuated; gray of back bluer, the underparts darker, the crissum blue; bill longer and narrower. Adult in fresh plumage: Pileum, hind neck, sides of neck, border of jugular white patch, wings, upper tail-coverts, and tail, jay-blue; crissum a little lighter blue (about king’s blue); malar region dark blue; lores and post-ocular area blackish; a superciliary line of white streaks; throat and chest white with diffused gray streaks, as in A. californica; upper back and scapulars mouse-gray; rump mingled blue and bluish gray; remaining underparts light mouse-gray. Bill and feet black; iris brown. Adult in worn plumage shows reduction of blue, especially on head and cervix, with attendant revelation of mouse-gray; gray of back browner, with showing of drab; pattern of underparts nearly effaced, mingled whitish, pale drab, and bluish dusky. Young birds are like adults in worn plumage with further effacement of blue, the blue element almost confined to wings and tail. Length of adult male 279.4-304.8 (11.00-12.00); wing 133 (5.24); tail 143 (5.63); bill 28.5 (1.12); depth at nostril 9.4 (.37); tarsus 41 (1.61). Females smaller. Recognition Marks.—“‘Jay size;’”’ jay-blue and mouse-gray coloration, without crest. Dintinguished with A. californica as above. Nesting.—Much as in A. californica. Eggs not so highly differentiated. A set in the M. C. O. coll. has a water-green (greenish yellow) ground color with sharp spots of warm sepia. Av. size 27.7 x 20 (1.09 x .79) (Bendire). General Range.—‘‘Great Basin and adjacent arid region, breeding in Upper Sonoran and Transition zones from southeastern Oregon, southern Idaho,, and southern Wyoming south to southeastern California (east of Sierra Nevada), Arizona, New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, and western Texas.’”’ (A. O. U. Com.). Range in California.—‘‘Upper Sonoran zone in the desert mountains of the eastern part of the State, in the Inyo and Mohave regions. At the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, probably as a transient only.’’ (Swarth). Authorities.—Kennerly (Cyanocitta californica), Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. iv., pt. vi., 1856, p. 16; Baird, Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. ix., 1858, pp. 585-586 (description of woodhouset); Fisher, A. K., North Amer. Fauna, no. 7, 1893, p. 69 (distr.); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 372-374, pl. v., fig. 14 (habits, nest and eggs); Oberholser, Condor, vol. xix., 1917, pp. 94, 95 (taxonomy); Swarth, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. 17, 1918, pp. 417-418 (descr.; range). 63 The Woodhouse Jay THE question, much agitated of late, as to whether the Wood- house Jay may be only a subspecies of the californica type, is one which cannot be thrashed out in the closet. Differences sufficient to entitle a bird-type to specific recognition invariably record themselves in voice and action, as well as in plumage changes. The history of the race must have been different, and if so, something more than the mere fact of isolation, or iucipient change, must be noted in order to establish that historical difference, and to gain for its subject credence as a species. This raises the very question that I am not qualified to answer, viz., Does the Woodhouse Jay differ sufficiently from the California Jay in voice and action to establish the presumption that there has been a markedly divergent history for the two species, and that their recently established occurrence together, upon the east slopes of the Sierras, is only the accidental meeting of two conquering types moving out from independent distributional centers long since established? I do not know, but my very brief acquaintance with woodhouset, in southern Arizona, namely, leads me to think that it does. It seemed to me, fresh from association with californica, that the voice of woodhousei was, in general, notably weaker. And when first heard, the shook shook shook shook note of the Woodhouse deceived me, momentarily, into entering Long-crested Jay (Cyanocitta stellert diademata) in my field book. This note occupies a middle position between the characteristic outcry of our stellert type and a cry of the californica whose resemblance to that of stellert | had, for lack of that mediating suggestion, never previously noted. This does not mean, of course, that Aphelocoma woodhouset resembles Cyanocitta stellert in form and plumage in any such fashion as it resembles A. californica; but it does mean, if its significance be allowed, that A. woodhousei, along with C. stelleri, has preserved a certain ancestral tradition, or vocal habit, which californica has well nigh forgotten. These leadings, I take it, are of considerable importance. The testimony of the egg is less clear, but in comparing a series of eggs of woodhousei with a like series of californica, | should say that the preponderance of the evidence favors specific recognition. For the rest, in his native haunts of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and upper southeastern California, Woodhouse’s Jay is the animating spirit of the chaparral, as the California Jay is elsewhere in the State. Only an expert would sense differences between them in the hand or out of it. The Steller Jays No. 10 Steller’s Jay No. 10a Blue-fronted Jay A. O. U. No. 478a. Cyanocitta stelleri frontalis (Ridgway). Synonyms.—MountTaIn JAy. “BLUE JAY.” “JAYBIRD.” Description.—Adults: Conspicuously crested. In general, foreparts sooty black, remaining plumage rich blue. Head including crest and jugulum sooty brown or sooty black, the longer feathers of crest bluish-tinged; chin and throat heavily streaked with grayish or bluish white (streaks nearly confluent in fresh plumage); forehead and forecrown sharply and heavily streaked with light blue and whitish (olympic blue to light sky-blue); cervix (broadly), upper back, and scapulars, dark grayish brown (dusky drab to natal brown); rump, upper tail-coverts, outer webs of primaries, and posterior underparts light blue (pale cerulean blue to light squill-blue); breast (shading each way) and wing-coverts darker blue (gendarme-blue to dark cadet- blue); exposed portions of inner primaries, secondaries, and rectrices dark blue (ranging from dusky greenish blue to grayish violaceous blue); the concealed portions blackish; the greater wing-coverts faintly, the inner secondaries, tertials, and rectrices sharply and rather finely barred with black. Bill and feet black; iris brown. Plumage wear shows chiefly in darkening of throat and in reduction of frontal streaking. Young birds have the wing colors of adult, with barring merely indicated, but lack the blue body plumage; foreparts and back sooty brown to dusky drab, changing posteriorly to plumbeous. Length of adult male 304.8 (12.00) or under; wing 146.5 (5.75); tail 136 (5.35); bill 29.5 (1.16); tarsus 42 (1.65). Females decidedly smaller. Recognition Marks.—Robin size; black crest; blue and sooty black coloration unmistakable; harsh notes. Nesting.— Nest: Usually in top of evergreen sapling of thicket, or variously in evergreen trees; composed exteriorly of small sticks and trash, interiorly of coarse rootlets, or needles of some long-leafed pine; the whole strengthened by a nearly in- visible bowl of mud. Eggs: 4, rarely 5; pale bluish green (pale glaucous green, pale niagara green), spotted sparingly with deep olive or olive-brown (also Saccardo's umber or sepia). Av. size 30.2 x 22.6 (1.19 x .89); index 74.8. Season: April 20-June 10, according to altitude; one brood. . Range of Cyanocitta stelleriWestern North America from Alaska south to the highlands of Central America. Range of C. s. frontalis (chiefly contained within California)—Common resident of Transition and Canadian zones throughout the Sierra Nevada and the neighboring non-arid ranges of northern and southern California, south to the San Pedro Martir Mountains of Lower California. According to Grinnell, this form occurs in the northern coast ranges south to Mount Saint Helena and Mount George, and pushes through to the coast; thus interrupting the range of carbonacea in Sonoma County. In all probability the birds which occur throughout the inner ranges of Santa Barbara County are also related to the Sierran type more closely than to that of the humid coastal belt. Ventures out somewhat upon the lower levels in fall and winter. Authorities —Gambel (Cyanocorax stelleri), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. ill., 1847, p. 201; Feilner, Ann. Rept. Smithsonian Inst. for 1864 (1865), p. 427 (habits); Ridgway, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, vol. v., 1873, p. 41 (description of frontalis); Goss, 65 The Steller Jays Auk, vol. ii., 1885, 217 (nesting in holes); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 365-367 (habits, nest and eggs); Sampson, Condor, vol. iii., 1901, p. 37 (at Stockton); Fisher, W. K., Condor, vol. iv., 1902, pp. 41-44 (critical; range); Mailliard, Condor, vol. x., 1908, p. 134 (range in Sonoma Co.). No. 10b Coast Jay A. O. U. No. 478e. Cyanocitta stelleri carbonacea Grinnell. Synonyms.—GRINNELL’S JAy. “BLUE Jay,” etc. Description.—Similar to C. s. frontalis, but darker throughout, and with re- duction of frontal streaking; back and scapulars blackish brown, scarcely different from chest; be!ly jay-blue; rump king’s blue; size not appreciably different. Nesting.— Nest: Much as in preceding form, save that coarse rootlets are in- wardly employed as lining; often placed in deciduous saplings, especially tanbark oak. Eggs: 2-4, colored as in preceding race. Season: April 20-May 20; one brood Range of C. s. carbonacea.—Resident in the humid coastal strip from southern Oregon south to the Santa Lucia Mountains of California. Intergrades with A. fronta- lis at western bases of inner coastal ranges, but distinctive characters apparently fail along the coast of northern Sonoma County. Relationships in southern portion of range not exactly defined. Authorities.—Newberry, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. vi., pt. 4, 1857, p. 85; Bendire, Life Hist. N. Am. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 365-367, pl. v. (fig. 10) (habits, nest and eggs); Mazlliard, J., Condor, vol. ii., 1900, p. 58 and p. 126 (habits); Grinnell, Condor, vol. ii., 1900, p. 127 (desc. of carbonacea); Fisher, W. K., Condor, vol. iv., 1902, pp. 41-44, map (crit.; range); Ray, Condor, vol. xi., 1909, pp. 18-19 (habits); Beal, Biol. Surv. Bull. no. 34, 1910, pp. 47-49 (part) (food). ; “OFFICER! arrest that bird!’’ It is Mountain Chickadee who enters complaint against a culprit Screech Owl blinking in the inadequate shade of a fir sapling. And it is Sergeant Steller Jay, one of the finest, who makes instant response, leading the attack upon the offender, buffet- ting, upbraiding, driving him from cover to cover, until his proper hidey- hole is reached. And Arragh! What excited talk will follow! Corporal Flicker, who has lumbered up, full of curiosity, must hear all about it; and so must the Cassin Vireos, who, as everybody knows, are the world’s great busy-bodies. Officer Jay is in his element, but he moves off import- antly, before the little fellows are half satisfied, announcing, as he does so, that he must look after the movements of the Mountain Lion, who is due on his beat that day; but saying in an aside, “‘It doesn’t do to let the small fry get too familiar.”’ And it is a true word which says, ‘“‘It takes a thief to catch a thief.” For, to do him justice, it is usually the Steller Jay who is first to make discovery and outcry if there is any mischief afoot in the woods. Time and again we have had our attention called to the presence of deer or foxes or Horned Owls, which would entirely have escaped our notice 66 The Steller Jays had it not been for the zealous proclamations of these birds. One April morning, in the hinter- land of Santa Barbara, where Steller (Blue-fronted) Jays were not supposed to exist, I stopped the “Jolly Ellen’? and turned aside into a dense thicket, where a crested jay was vociferating. Arrived at the published spot, I saw nothing whatever, and sat down, grumbling, to await possi- ble developments. Presently, through a dim, sequestered aisle in the lower growth I saw a ““bob-cat’’ crouching and _ re- garding me through narrowed slits. The jay was right, after all, and I apologized. Be sure, also, that the jay is keeping tab on your own movements. If he is feeling hilarious that morning, and he usually is, he will greet the ex- plorer boisterously; but if he “has his doots,’’ he will trail after silently in the tree-tops, ‘takin’ notes”’ instead. Upon discovery the Steller Jay sets up a great outcry and makes off through the thickets shrieking lustily. A favorite method of retreat is to flit up into the lower branches of a fir tree, and, keep- ing close to the trunk, to ascend the succeeding limbs as by a spiral staircase. The bird, in- — roken in Riverside County Photo by the Author deed, takes a childish delight in A SILHOUETTE this mad exercise, and no sooner does he quit one tree-top than he dashes down to a neighboring tree to run another frenzied gamut. Upon a less strenuous occasion it is worth while to note the manner of that descending flight. A considerable space is to be crossed. The jav 67 The Steller Jays launches himself from the high point of one tree and aims for the lower- most limb across the interval, so he opens and closes his wings in the most leisurely manner, giving rise to a series of hitches, or parachute dives. At the climax of each spread, every feather of the wings and tail is clearly defined, and the whole makes a very pleasing picture. The purpose of this halting descent is evidently to afford the bird leisurely glimpses of the open country below, to give him time to focus accurately upon details of possible interest. The notes of the Steller Jay are harsh and expletive to a degree. Shaack, shaack, shaack is a common (and most exasperating) form; or, by a little stretch of the imagination one may hear jay, jay, jay. A mellow klook, klook, klook sometimes varies the rasping imprecations and serves to remind one that the jay is cousin to the crow. Other and minor notes there are for the lesser and rarer emotions, and some of these not un- musical. At his task of counting the rungs of some heavenly ladder of fir or pine, he will indulge a sort of musical chatter entirely for his own benefit, singing snatches, as it were, of the latest opera, and then winding up suddenly with a horse-laugh. Very rarely the bird attempts song, and does succeed in producing a medley that quite satisfies her that he could if he would. I have fancied that the Steller Jays of California, frontalis and carbenacea, have somewhat lighter, clearer voices than those of stellert typicus in the Northwest. And I am quite sure that carbonacea has a more extended repertory of cries than the other forms—a subject which would repay careful investigation. C. stelleri, like C. cristata of the East, is something of a mimic. The notes of the Western Redtail (Buteo borealis calurus) and other hawks are reproduced with especial fidelity. For such an effort thejay conceals himself in the depths of a large-leafed maple or in a fir thicket, and his sole object appears to be that of terrorizing the neighboring song-birds. One such I heard holding forth from a shade tree on the grounds of a lunatic asylum. Uncanny sounds were, of course, not unknown in that section, but an exploratory pebble served to unmask the cheat, and drove forth a very much chastened ‘‘Blue Jay’’ before a company of applauding Juncoes. On another occasion when I was investigating the domestic affairs of a pair of ‘‘Long-crested’’ Jays, this self-same cry of the Redtail was hurled at me, not once but repeatedly, evidently with the expectation of exciting terror in the oological breast. The diet of these jays is highly varied. They will “try anything once,”’ and so, tiring of bugs and slugs, they are not averse to sampling corn, cabbage leaves, or, best of all, potatoes. While their depredations do not figure much in the larger scheme of things, their attentions to pioneer enterprises and modest “‘clearings’’ are a little exasperating. The 68 ay The Steller Jays launches himself front the high point of one tree and aims for the lower- most limb across the interval, so he opens and closes his wings in the most leisurely manues, giving rise to a series of hitches, or parachute dives: Meaty At the climax of each saread, every feather of the wings and tail is clearly us defined. and the whole makes a very pleasing picture. The purpose of — ~ this halting descent is eviclesily io afford the bird leisurely glimpses of the open country below, t give bien time to focus accurately upon details of possible interest. ae The notes «? the Steller fay are harsh and expletive to a degree. Shaack, stueck. vhoack W @ commen (and most exasperating) form; or, by a little strond: uf Mie faglantion ome may bear jay, jay, jay. Amellow bined Soad. Kiackh semetiwes varica the rasping imprecations and serves i xoting the canes +4 some heavenly ladder of» » anh of peasad (herter outivety for his own lagen) peta, ard then winding Vers nansiy the tid eitentpts song,” : toy that quite setinive ter (eat he contd z x Bicter pave of Catania. fromiats igiiee, clearer vices than those of stellen: tent: Asi bapa quite sare that carbomecea Hae o Seed —_ écies then the other fervay--a subject whirk weak pceoy conte ievestiont ioe. i’. eeiind tke C. eee a the Laat. is somerhimg of a mimic. The me Liseee ee. Spee vat! ge shay with a axial Stones CSET Sr Ss Whe eas. 1} Bow ei gertekae 3 dave foeth a very much chacione anism Say Tenoors. On antl Geechetic slats of a pair ct“ Damigteaiee) te Beha wine buried xt ; Ve me hie Fhe % a a) mi Tae eek iB AO PE ES: - SSS 5 Reade er othaat ing the aN 4, Tht atin ey ol fu, weeny wey S.. Seatr < Gee wil: try anything "7 “ gee mat averse to sampling’ ws. hile their depredations ~ ~ “age, their attentions to ave = Hitle exasperating. The tae ee BN ee Ole pipe A ‘4 Rie Ras REE The Steller Jays birds have observed the tedious operations of the gardener in planting, and know precisely where the coveted tubers lie. Bright and early the following morning they slip to the edge of the clearing, post one of their number as lookout, then silently deploy upon their ghoulish task. If they weary of potatoes, sprouting peas or corn will do. Or perhaps there may be something interesting at the base of this young tomato plant. And when the irate farmer appears upon the scene, the marauders retire to the forest shrieking with laughter at the discomfitted swain. Ay! there’s the rub! We may endure injury but not insult. Bang! Bang! As a connois- seur of birds’ eggs, too, the Steller Jay enjoys a bad emi- nence. The suffer- ers in this case are chiefly the lesser song birds; but no eggs whatever are exempt from his covetous glance, if left unguarded. The jay has be- come especially proficient in the discovery and sack- ing of Bush-tits’ nests. Mr. D. E. Brown assures me that he has found as high as fifteen nests of this bird in a single swamp, all gutted by jays. When it is remem- bered that these busy little workers make one of the handsomest nests in the world, the shame of this piracy ge ts u pon t h e Taken in Fresno County Photo by the Author nerves. The in- A HAUNT OF THE LONG-CRESTED JAY 69 The Gray Jays vestigation of Tits’ nests has something of the fascination of the gaming table for the jay, since he never knows what the wonder-pouches may contain until he has ripped a hole in the side and inserted a piratical beak. It is well known that the gentleman burglar takes a conscientious pride in the safety and welfare of his own home. Nothing shall molest his dear ones. The jay becomes secretive and silent as the time for nest-building approaches. The nest is well concealed in a dense thicket of fir saplings, or else set at various heights in the larger fir trees. If one but looks at it before the complement of eggs is laid, the locality is deserted forthwith. If, however, the enterprise is irretrievably launched, the birds take care not to be seen in the vicinity of their nest, unless they are certain of its discovery, in which case they call heaven and earth to witness that the man is a monster of iniquity, and that he is plotting against the innocent. The youngsters, too, quickly learn to assume the attitude of affronted innocence. At an age when most bird-babies would make a silent get-away under cover of the parental defense, young Steller Jays will turn to and berate the stranger in common with their parents, with all the virtuous zeal of ordained elders. Mischief and the ‘‘ Blue Jay’’ aresynonymous. Alert, restless, saucy, inquisitive, and prov oking, yet always interesting, this handsome brigand keeps his human critics in a perpetual see-saw between wrath and admir- ation. Asa sprightly piece of Nature, the Steller Jay is an unqualified success. As the hero-subject of a guessing contest he is without a peer, for one never knows what he is doing until he has done it, and none may predict what he will do next. No. 11 Oregon Jay A. O. U. No. 485. Perisoreus obscurus obscurus Ridgway. Synonyms.—(Properly) OREGON GRay JAY or CoasTAL GRAy Jay. ‘CAMP RosBerR.”’ ‘‘MeatT Birp.”” ‘‘DEER HUNTER.” Description.—Adults: In general, upperparts deep brownish gray (nearest chaetura drab); underparts white tinged with brownish gray; forehead and nasal plumules most nearly clear white; cheeks, auriculars, and obscure band around neck, white, more or less tinged with brownish; crown and nape sooty brown, nearly black; feathers of back with white shafts more or less exposed; wings and tail drab gray (scarce- ly different from back), the former with narrow whitish tips on middle and greater coverts; tail tipped with paler gray. Bill and feet black; iris brown. Young birds are nearly uniform sooty brown, lightening below. Length about 254 (10.00); wing 135 (5.30); tail 127 (5.00); bill 18 (.71); tarsus 33 (1.30). 7O The Gray Jays OREGON JAY Recognition Marks.—Robin size; brownish gray coloration; familiar, fearless ways. Not certainly distinguishable afield from the next form. Nesting.— Nest: a bulky, compacted structure of twigs, plant-fibers, and tree- moss, with warm lining of fine mosses and feathers, placed well up in fir tree. Eggs: 4 or 5; light gray or pale greenish gray, spotted with grayish brown and vinaceous gray. Av. size 26.4 x 20 (1.04 x .79). Season: February-April: one brood. Range of Perisoreus obscurus.—British Columbia and the Pacific Coast States south to northern California. Range in California.—Resident in the northwest humid coastal strip south to Mendocino, Mendocino County. Authorities.—Townsend, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. x., 1887, p. 212 (part); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 394-396 (part); Heller, Condor, vol. iv., 1902, p. 46 (in southern Mendocino Co.); Oberholser, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., vol. XXx., 1917, pp. 185-187 (critical; range); Swarth, Condor, vol. xx., 1918, pp. 83-84 (sys- tematic; range). Wet The Gray Jays No. 11a Gray Jay A. O. U. No. 485a. Perisoreus obscurus griseus Ridgway. Synonyms.—As in preceding form. Description.—‘‘Similar to P. 0. obscurus, but decidedly larger (except feet), and coloration much grayer; back, etc., deep mouse-gray, instead of brown, remiges and tail between neutral gray and smoke-gray, instead of drab-gray, and under parts grayish white instead of brownish white.’. (Ridgway). Length (av. of three northern specimens): 283.5 (11.16); wing 147.6 (5.82); tail 139.1 (5.48): bill 19 (.75); tarsus 31.7 (1.25). Range of P. o. griseus —Interior of southern British Columbia and the central and eastern mountain systems of Washington, Oregon, and northern California. Range in California.—Sparingly resident in the Boreal zone of northern Cali- fornia east of the humid coastal strip, south to Mt. Lassen. Authorities.—Newberry (Perisoreus canadensis), Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. vi., pt. iv., 1857, pp. 85-86; Felner, Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst., for 1864 (1865), pp. 427-428 (habits); Henshaw, Rep. Orn. Wheeler Surv., 1879, p. 308: (crit.; habits); Townsend, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. x., 1887, pp. 211-212 (part) (habits); Oberholser, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., vol. xxx., 1917, pp. 185-187 (crit.; range); Swarth, Condor, vol. xx., 1918, pp. 83-84 (systematic; range). Photo by the Author A NEAR ASPECT OF MOUNT SHASTA GRAY JAYS ARE FOUND THROUGHOUT THIS BELT OF SHASTA FIRS V2. The Gray Jays THE ‘‘Camp-Robber”’ appears promptly as interested neighbor and smell-feast before all who invade the precincts of the mountains. The hunter, the trapper, the prospector, the timber cruiser, the mere camper- out, all know him, and they speak well or ill of him accord- ing to their kind. The Gray Jay ap- pears to have for- sworn the craftiness of his race, and he wins by an exhibi- tion of artless sim- plicity, rather than by wiles. The bird is mildly curious and hungry — oh, very hungry — but this is Arcadia, and the shepherd draws nigh with never a doubt of his wel- come. There is a childlike insouci- ance about the way in which the bird annexes a piece of frizzled bacon, humbly intended i Or icine im Ain . Se SOO; aGidusy.ou say? Why, what do you mean? CangtelBhayemiterae And the bird re- tires before a fly- ing chip, baffled and injured by such a manifest token of Taken in Humboldt County Photo by the Author IN THE REDWOODS OREGON JAYS ARE AMONG THE FEW BIRDS TO BE FOUND IN THE DEPTHS OF THESE FORESTS ill-breeding. He complains mildly to his fellows. They discuss the question in gentle whews; generously conclude you didn’t mean it, and return unabashed to the quest. 7S The Gray Jays Hunger is the chief characteristic of these docile birds, and no poten- tial food is refused, nuts, acorns, insects, berries, or even, as a last resort, the buds of trees. Meat of any sort has an especial attraction to them; and they are the despair of the trapper because of their propensity for stealing bait. The hunter knows them for arch sycophants, and he is occasionally able to trace a wounded deer, or to locate a carcass by the movements of these expectant heirs. Says Mr. A.W. Anthony: ‘‘ While dressing deer in the thick timber I have been almost covered with Jays flying down from the neighboring trees. They would settle on my back, head, or shoulders, tugging and pulling at each loose shred of my coat until one would think that their only object was to help me in all ways possible.”’ In the higher latitudes ‘‘ Whisky Jack,” in spite of carefully secreted stores, often be- comes very emaci- ated in winter, a mere bunch of bones and feathers, no heavier than a Red- poll. While the Jays of our kindlier clime do not feel so keenly the belly pinch of winter, they have the same thrifty habits as their northern kin- folk. Food is never refused, and a well-stuffed specimen will still carry grub from camp and secrete it in bark-crevice or hollow, against the unknown hour of need. , Though not a noisy bird after the fashion of A phelocoma or Cyano- citta, the Gray Jay, nevertheless, gives rise to a considerable variety of sounds. Besides the soft cooing whee ew, with which the birds follow each other’s movements, there is a drawling petulant squeal, curiously hawk-like in quality. By a great stretch of the imagination this could be rendered Jaaay, jaaay. On other occasions the resemblance to the quee e eer of the Western Redtail is inescapable. Then there is a “‘ winding- up note,’ not unlike the squeak of the Golden Eagle; a krowk krowk krowk of alarm; and the kooree kooree kroo kroo kroo kroo of more extended 74 A BACHELOR'S PET The Cowbirds flight. And to these a low, rambling song, delivered sotto voce,—your jay of whatever species is always modestly “‘practicing’’—and you have quite an extended repertory. Although common enough on Mt. Shasta, and of regular occurrence through the heavy forests of the northwestern counties, the eggs of Perisoreus jays have only once been reported from this State. The bird builds a very substantial nest of twigs, grasses, plant-fiber, and mosses, without mud, and it provides a heavy lining of soft, gray mosses for the gray-green eggs. The nest is placed, usually, in a fir sapling, at a height ranging from ten to eighty feet, and so well concealed that its discovery is well nigh impossible, save for the visits of the bird. Only one brood is reared in a season, and family groups hunt independently of their more distant kinsmen until late midsummer. No. 12 Cowbird No. 12a Nevada Cowbird A. O. U. No. 495 part. Molothrus ater artemisiz Grinnell. Description.—Adult male: Head, neck, and throat broadly light seal-brown, or bone-brown; remaining plumage black with metallic greenish or bluish reflections. Bill, feet, and legs black; iris brown. Adult female: General color fuscous above and drab below, the feathers chiefly with obscurely darker centers, or shaft-streaks, and occasionally show ng faint greenish reflections; head paler; throat drabby white, un- marked. Very old birds are darker, with more iridescence and less streaking. Immature birds resemble adult female, but are lighter and more varied; above brownish gray (nearly hair brown), everywhere edged with grayish white; below grayish, heavily streaked everywhere (save on throat), and especially on breast, with fuscous, and varied by brownish buffy edgings. The young males present a striking appearance when they are assuming the adult black, on the instalment plan, by chunks and blotches. Length 190.5-203.2 (7.50-8.00). Average of 11 males from Humboldt County, Nevada, (after Grinnell): wing 113.5 (4.55); tail 79.4 (3.13); bill 18.3 (.72); depth of bill at base 10.3 (.40); tarsus 27.7 (1.09). Females average decidedly less. Recognition Marks.—Towhee size; brown head and black body of male; blended brown of female. Requires distinction from the resident Brewer Blackbird (Euphagus cyanocephalus), from which it differs in its much smaller size, brown instead of vio- laceous head of male; shorter, more turgid beak; female with much lighter throat; and posterior parts not glossy. Young Cowbirds bear a superficial resemblance to female Redwings (A gelaius sp.), but are smaller and less sharply streaked. Close attendance upon cattle distinctive. Nesting.—Parasitic: the Cowbird invariably deposits her eggs in the nests of other birds. Eggs: 1 or 2, rarely 3 or 4, with a single hostess; white or grayish white, sprinkled or spotted with grayish brown (Natal brown to fuscous, or buffy brown to drab), if finely, then almost uniformly, if more coarsely, then sharply, and with tend- ihe) The Cowbirds ency to cloud capping. Av. size (of ater ater): 21.5 x 16.4 (.84 x .65). Season: In- determinable, April to July. Range of Molothrus ater—North America from about Latitude 60° in west central Canada south over the Mexican plateau. Range of M. a. artemisie.—Presumably the Great Basin region north into British Columbia. Breeds chiefly in the Upper Sonoran zone and winters south into Mexico. Distribution in California.x—Summer resident, not common, in the plateau region east of the Sierras, south perhaps to Death Valley (A. K. Fisher [Grinnell]) and Yermo on the Mohave desert (Lamb), although region of intergradation with obscurus undefined. Casual (?) west of the Sierras (Farallon Ids., June 2, 1911). Authorities.—Gambel (Molothrus pecoris), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. iii., 1847, p. 204;Grinnell, Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., vol. 5, 1909, pp. 276-281, 2 figs. (descrip- tion of artemisiae; critical); Dawson, Condor, vol. xiii., 1911, p. 186 (occurrence on Farallons); Oberholser, Auk, vol. xxxiv., 1917, pp. 327-328 (critical; range). No. 12b Dwarf Cowbird A. O. U. No. 495a. Molothrus ater obscurus (Gmelin). Description.—Similar to M. a. artemisie, but much smaller; the female slightly paler. Av. of 11 males (after Grinnell): wing 100.1 (3.94); tail 68.4 (2.69); bill 16.5 (.65); depth at base 9.2 (.36); tarsus 24.1 (.95) Nesting.—As in preceding form. Eggs: decidedly smaller, Av. of 40 eggs from Arizona in the M.C. O. coll. 20x 14.5 (.76 x .57). Extremes: 17.5-20.8 by 13.5-15.5 (.69-.82 by .53-.61). Range of M. a. obscurus—The southwestern United States from southern Texas west to southern California, and south in Mexico to Colima and Jalisco. Distribution in California.—Summer resident in southern California and in the Tulare basin; commonly along the Colorado River and on the Colorado desert, north to Independence (Grinnell), Bakersfield (Grinnell), Buena Vista Lake (Mailliard), Weldon (Grinnell), and Fresno (Tyler, although possibly not breeding), and more sparingly in the San Diego district, west at least to Santa Barbara (Dawson, several occurrences). Winters in the Colorado River valley and on the Colorado desert, west at least to Mecca (January 30 and February 4, 1913; also van Rossem). Authorities.—Cooper (Molothrus pecoris), Orn. Calif., 1870, pp. 257-260 (egg in Chat nest in Colorado Valley); Bendire, Rept. U. S. National Mus. for 1893 (1895), Pp- 597-599 (general account); Grinnell, Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., vol. 5, 1909, pp. 278- 281; zbid., vol. 12, 1914, pp. 157-160 (critical; range); Law, Condor, vol. xii., 1910, p. 174 (in Los Angeles Co.; habits); Tyler, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 9, 1913, pp. 67-68 (in Fresno district); Dawson, Condor, vol. xviii., 1916, p. 27 (at Santa Barbara); Ober- holser, Auk, vol. xxxiv., 1917,pp. 327, 328 (crit.; range); Hanna, Condor, vol. xx., 1918, pp. 211-212 (nests parasitized). IT MAY be urged with some show of justice that every bird-person deserves a sympathetic biographer. Even criminals on trial for their lives are entitled to legal defense. Well, then, let who will be defender. I will be prosecuting attorney. ‘‘J’accuse.’’ The prisoner at the bar 76 The Cowbirds is a demirep, a ne’er-do-weel, a slattern, a shirk, a harpy, a traitor, an anarchist. Destitute of all natural affection, she cares neither for the wrongs of others nor for the undermined pillars of her own virtue. She is the unchaste mother of a race gone wrong, an enemy of bird-society, a blight upon the flower of Progress. Despised and hated by her fellow birds, harried and anathematized by her victims, this avian marplot lives only by stealth and by the secret practice of violence. All that may possibly be urged on behalf of this culprit is that she is the victim of an unfortunate heredity. Such a defense is in itself an accusation. The Cowbird stock is indeed polluted: of haphazard and unknown pater- nity, conceived in an infamy of indifference, she was dumped at birth into a strange cradle, and left to make shift as best she might, an un- blessed and pitiless bastard. Nourished by uncomprehending or reluctant strangers, and winning a place in their affections solely at the cost of the lives of their own innocent babes, this foundling first accepts their un- tiring ministrations, and then escapes, an alien ingrate, to join herself to the beasts of the field. What wonder, then, that at maturity she wel- comes the pirate band, joins them in their obscene revels, and perpetuates, in turn, her dissolute race. Out upon her! Of course we are ‘‘anthropomorphizing’’; but the case is really as bad as that. Taken on any plane of life and stated in its lowest terms, parasitism is mutiny, a breaking down of life’s wholesome and necessary disciplines, a surrender of life’s ends. A parasite is a failure. Evolution is at a standstill. Wherever parasitism succeeds, nature has to begin over again. But even degeneracy may be picturesque,—of interest, that is, when viewed dispassionately as a phenomenon instead of a moral issue. Hear, then, with what tolerance you may, the story of a changeling: Beginning, say, in mid-August, before the bird has ever seen another of its own kind, we find it closely attached to some group of horses or cows, following them about slavishly, now being nosed out of the way as the animals feed, or evading as by instinct the misplaced hoof. Perhaps it is oftenest the foregathering of the animals which leads the birds them- selves together. At any rate, the corral soon boasts a little company of these dun-colored youngsters with light undervests, and, though they early learn to come and go freely, the association with horses and cattle is lifelong. In all probability the ‘‘Cowbird”’ once followed the buffalo in the same fashion, and was, prior to the introduction of cattle by Euro- peans in the 16th Century, the Buffalobird. In September the males exchange the inconspicuous livery of youth for the rich iridescent black of adult plumage; and they do this on the instalment plan, by chunks and blotches, looking meanwhile like rag- a The Cowbirds pickers tricked out in cast-off finery. The flocks increase in size as the season advances, and may reach into the thousands in regions where the species is abundant. The birds mingle more or less freely with Redwings, and occasionally with Brewer Blackbirds. In feeding upon the ground about corrals the Cowbirds are quickly actuated by the flock impulse, rising as one bird at a fancied alarm. After alighting upon a fence or upon the unprotesting backs of cattle, they hop down again one by one as confidence becomes established. They greet each other always with quivering bodies and uptilted tails, and that upon the most trivial occasions. Inasmuch as this is the accept- ted ‘‘sex call,’’ reserved for rare occasions by all proper birds, one cannot escape the conviction that these Cowbirds are lewd fellows, habituated to the very attitudes of vice. In winter there is a general retirement into Mexico, although a few of the dwarf variety linger through the season upon the Colorado Desert and along the Colorado River. In February or March, according to altitude, there is a return movement of Cowbirds, oftenest in company with other blackbirds. But if the main flock halts for refreshments and discussion en route, a group of these rowdies will hunt up some disreputable female of their own kind, and make tipsy and insulting advances to her along some horizontal limb or fence rail. Taking a position about a foot away from the coy drab, the male will make two or three accelerating hops toward her, then stop suddenly, allowing the impulse of motion to tilt him violently forward and throw his tail up perpendicularly, while at the same moment he spews out the disgusting notes which voice his passion. As the mating season advances the male birds become very active, whether in the untiring pursuit of frailty or in a sympathetic search for prospective foundling homes which they may recommend to their paramours. At such times they move about singly, or by twos or threes, and post prominently in treetops. Any unusual noise, especially a slight one, attracts their attention; and if a human has business in the woodland his movements are sure to be spied upon from time to time by alert Cowbirds. Often the detective announces his discovery by a gurgling squeaky song, and he is quite sure to utter this once or twice just before quitting his observation post. Of the mating, Chapman says: ‘‘They build no nest, and the females, lacking every moral instinct, leave their companions only long enough to deposit their eggs in the nests of other and smaller birds. I can imagine no sight more strongly suggestive of a thoroughly despicable nature than a female Cowbird sneaking through the trees and bushes in search of a victim upon whom to shift the duties of motherhood.”’ The egg, thus surreptitiously placed in another bird’s nest, hatches 78 The Cowbirds in ten or eleven days, usually, therefore, two or three days before those of the foster mother, and the infant Cowbird thus gains an advantage which he is not slow to improve. His loud clamoring for food often drives the old birds to abandon the task of incubation; or if the other eggs are allowed to remain until hatched, the uncouth stranger manages to usurp attention and food supplies, and not infrequently to override or stifle the other occupants of the nest, so that their dead bodies are by-and-by removed to make room for his hog- ship. It is asserted by some that in the absence of the foster parents the young thug forcibly ejects the right- ful heirs from the nest, after the fashion of the Old World Cuckoos. I once found a nest which contained only a lusty Cowbird, while three proper fledglings clung to the shrub- bery below, and one lay dead upon the ground. When the misplaced tenderness of foster parents has done its utmost for the young upstart, he joins him- self to some precious crew of his own blood, and the cycle of a changeling is complete. There are endless details and variations to be noted in this exhibi- tion of parasitism, here so hastily reviewed. Much remains yet to be learned by methodical observation, particularly of the western varieties. THIS EGG OF THE DWARF COWBIRD RESTS ON THE SKIRTS Especially interesting is the psycho- OF A LUCY WARBLER’S NEST. THE CRANNY logical reaction of the various victims Oe a Se Le aga 4 we A wy 4 aad a) re 4 “fy a“ 4 oe ~ we et Taken in Sania Barbara County Photo by the Author HIGH NOTES BLACKBIRDS, CHIEFLY BREWERS ago by an Old World thrush (Turdus merula)? The name “blackbird,” moreover, in America, carries with it a strong suggestion of thievishness, an odium scarcely deserved by the subject of this sketch. He is a hand- some fellow, our western grackle, sleek, vivacious, interesting, and serviceable withal. We know him best, perhaps, as an industrious gleaner of pastures, corrals, streets, and ‘‘made”’ lands. He is not only the farmer’s ‘“‘hired man,’’ waging increasing warfare against insect life, especially in its noxious larval forms, but he has an accepted place in the economy of city and village as well. As one approaches a feeding flock, he notes the eagerness with which the birds run forward, or rise and flit past their fellows, now diving at a nimble weevil, now leaping to catch a passing bug, but always pushing on until the onlooker perceives a curious rolling effect in the total movement. As we draw near, some timid individual takes alarm, and instantly all are up, to alight again upon the fence or shrubbery, where they clack and whistle, not so much by way of apprehension as through sheer ex- uberance of nervous force. As we pass (we must not stop short, for they resent express attention) we note the droll white eyes of the males, as they twist and perk and chirp in friendly impudence, and the snuffy brown heads of the females with their soft hazel irides, as they give a motherly fluff of the feathers, or yawn with impatience over the interrupted meal. When we are fairly by, the most venturesome dives from his perch, and the rest follow by twos and tens, till the ground is again covered by a shifting, chattering band. Like all blackbirds (grackles included), the Brewers are gregarious, 35 The Brewer Blackbird but they are somewhat more independent than most, flocks of one or two score being more frequent than those of a hundred. During migration and in winter flocking they associate more or less with Redwings; but, although they are devoted to the vicinity of water, they care nothing for the fastnesses of reed and rush, which are the delight of Redwing and Yellowhead. Their preference is for more open situations. The water may be that of river, lake, or horse-pond. A watering-trough, if its supply be constant, will have its devoted circle of black admirers, and especially if it also assures the presence of cattle. In some places their attendance upon horses or cattle is so close that they almost fulfil the function of Cowbirds. Being omnivorous as well as adaptable, the grain wasted by feeding animals is consumed by these birds as greedily as are the insects which annoy them. Familiarity with domestic animals may reach the point where the birds are suffered on the back; and Mrs. Bailey tells us that in the Escondido country the birds take toll of the sheep’s backs at nesting time. Although isolated nests may now and then be found, colonies are the rule; and we sometimes find as high as twenty nests in a single tree, or forty in a given patch of greenery. There is, of course, room even here for individual choice of nesting sites; but the community choice is far more striking. Thus, one recalls the grease-wood nesting, the mistletoe nesting, the rose-briar nesting, the Monterey cypress nesting, where all the members of the colony conform to the locally established rule in nest position. J. H. Bowles records a most remarkable instance of this in Washington. One season the nests in the South Tacoma colony were all placed in small bushes, the highest not over four feet from the ground; but in the season following, the birds were all found nesting in cavities near the top of some giant fir stub, none of them less than 150 feet from the ground. Mr. Tyler? found them breeding at Shaver Lake (elevation 5300 ft.) in the old dead pine stubs standing out in the water. And Mr. Ray? reports their nesting at Lake Tahoe in the crannies of rotting piles. Numerous instances are on record where nests have been placed on the ground, and sometimes entire colonies will adopt this indolent and un- questionably hazardous method. In construction, the nest of the Brewer Blackbird varies considerably, but at its best it is quite a handsome affair. Composed externally of twigs, weed-stalks, and grasses, its characteristic feature is an interior mould, or matrix, of dried cow-dung or mud, which gives form and stability to the whole. The lining almost invariably includes fine brown rootlets, but horsehair is also welcomed wherever available. eccnne Birds of Washington,”’ Vol. 1, p. 47, 1909. 2John G. Tyler in “‘The Condor,” Vol. XI., May 1909, p. 83. 3Milton S. Ray, “‘The Condor,’’ Vol. XI., Nov. 1909, p. 193-196. 56 The Brewer Blackbird The eggs of Brewer’s Blackbird are the admiration of oologists. Ranging in color from clear greenish gray with scattered markings through denser patterns to nearly uniform umber and chocolate, they are the natural favorites of ‘‘series’’ hunters. The range of variation is, indeed, curious, but it proves to be entirely individual and casual, without trace of local or constant differences. Eggs from the same nest are usually uniform in coloration, but even here there may be a notable diversity. In some instances, after three or four eggs are laid, the pigment gives out, and the remainder of the set is lighter colored. Again, single eggs are heavily pigmented half way, and finished with a clear green ground-color. Taken in Santa Barbara County Photo by the Author a er prec ee SES CONTENTMENT—A SCENE IN THE ESTERO Fresh eggs have been taken as early as March 16th,! but April is the proper nesting month at the lower levels. It is impossible, though, to lay down rules or strike averages for a bird which breeds from the level of the sea to the top of high Transition, and possibly into Boreal. I am not able to find a specific record of the Brewer Blackbird’s nesting above 7000 feet, although Dr. Fisher? mentions it as ‘‘breeding at Big Cottonwood Meadows [alt. 10,000] during the summer;”’ and I presume that the birds which appeared at the Cottonwood Lakes (alt. 11,350) June 23rd, 1911, fell to nesting forthwith, as did the Spotted Sandpipers, which did not arrive until the 14th of July. This is but a characteristic example of the complexity of distribu- tional problems in California. A precise account of the seasonal ranges in this State of the Brewer Blackbird alone would require a separate 1By Evan Davis near Orange: Grinnell, Pub. 2, Pasadena Acad. Sci., 1898, p. 34. *Birds of the Death Valley Expedition, p. 78. 87 The Brewer Blackbird volume. In general, we may say with Grinnell! that “it breeds the whole length of the State—at the north chiefly east of the Sierran divide, south, east of the Sierras, to Owens Valley, west of the Sierras through the Sacramento Valley and marginal foothills of the San Joaquin Valley, and coastally from the San Francisco Bay region south through the San Diegan district.’’ It summers, therefore, through Upper Sonoran and Lower Transition and into Boreal of characteristically Sonoran complexion or approaches. In winter it probably retains its middle holdings, but its upper level population recedes to Lower Sonoran levels and to unoccu- pied Upper Sonoran areas, such as the southern central valleys. We have called the Brewer Blackbird ‘‘Grackle,’’ and are influenced, not alone by structure, but as much, perhaps, by consideration of its economy, which is largely that of the ‘“‘Crow Blackbird” (Quiscalus quiscalus and its allies). It is in his notes, however, that the Brewer Blackbird betrays his affinities best of all. The melodiously squeaking chatter of mating time is, of course, most like that of the Rusty Blackbird (E. carolinus), but it lacks the bubbling character. He has then the swelling note of the Grackles proper, fff-weet, the latter part rendered with something of a trill, the former merely as an aspirate; and the whole accompanied by expansion of body, slight lifting of wings, and partial spreading of tail. This note is uttered not only during the courting season, but on the occasion of excitement of any kind. Kooree has a fine metallic quality which promptly links it to the Keyring note of the Redwing. Chup is the ordinary note of distrust and alarm, or of stern inquiry, as when the bird-man is caught fingering the forbidden ovals. A harsh, low rattle, or rolling note, is also used when the birds are squab- bling among themselves, or fighting for position. The menu of Euphagus cyanocephalus is highly varied, as becomes a bird which dwells from sea-level to timber-line. It consists in part of grain, but this is chiefly gleaned waste (remember that the bird is absent from much of the grain-growing area at harvest season). After this, come weed-seeds and insects of a thousand hues, chiefly injurious or superabundant. Dr. Bryant?, in investigating the butterfly scourge, which for several years past has been destroying the chaparral in the Mt. Shasta region, found that Brewer’s Blackbird was the only species which was addressing itself resolutely to the task of keeping the butterflies (Eugonia californica) within bounds. Whole flocks of these blackbirds subsisted almost entirely upon the adult butterflies for the week during which they were under observation. Garden fruits, especially cherries, are sometimes levied upon; but 'Pac. Coast Avifauna, No. II, p. 106. 2“The Condor,” Vol. XIII., Nov. 1911, pp. 195-208. &S The Arizona Hooded Oriole the blackbirds will forsake the choicest ‘‘Bings’”’ if a neighbor starts plowing. It is as gleaners of cut-worms and grubs that these birds earn our warmest approbation; and from their close attendance upon the plow it is pretty safe to say that the Brewer Blackbird earns his keep ten times over. Taken in Santa Barbara County Photo by the Author BREWER BLACKBIRDS EATING OATS No. 15 Arizona Hooded Oriole A. O. U. No. 505a. icterus cucullatus nelsoni Ridgway. Synonym.—PaiM ORIOLE. Description.—Adult male in breeding plumage: Black, white, and cadmium- yellow; a glossy black mask, involving lower anterior portion of face, chin, throat, and chest (with convex posterior outline), sharply set off against rich cadmium-yellow of head, neck, and underparts; the yellow continuous with that of lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts; axillars and under wing-coverts paler yellow (lemon-chrome) ; upper back, broadly continuous with scapulars and lesser wing coverts, glossy black; wings and tail chiefly black; middle coverts and tips of greater coverts white, the flight feathers and tertials margined with white upon exposed webs; the rectrices tipped, or not, with white. Bill and feet black. Adult male in fall and winter: As in spring, but orange- yellow duller, washed above with olivaceous; the scapulars, etc., tipped with grayish olive. Adult female: Quite different. Back dull brownish gray, washed with oliva- ceous, everywhere shading—into fuscous of wings, into livelier olivaceous on head and neck, on sides into olive-yellow of underparts; rectrices shaded with olive-yellow on exposed portion (save on middle pair, which is faintly dusky-barred); middle and greater wing-coverts tipped with whitish, forming two inconspicuous bands; flight feathers margined with light brownish gray; olive-yellow of underparts clearing to wax-yellow on breast and under tail-coverts. Juvenals and immature birds resemble the female parent, but are duller. First year male in spring: Much like adult female, but showing increase of yellow, especially below, with a resulting greenish or olivaceous 0) The Arizona Hooded Oriole cast; chin and throat black. The approaching maturity of male birds is characterized by steady intensification of the yellows, and extension of the black ‘‘bib;’’ but the characters of the adult female are stubbornly retained above, and it is probable that the adult characters are not acquired until the third spring. In all males, advancing age is betokened by increase of the orange element in the yellows, so that the color of the oldest birds is a little richer than ‘‘cadmium-yellow.”’ Length of adult male about 203.2 (8.00). Av. of 10 (Ridgway): wing 88.4 (3.48); tail 89.9 (3.54); bill 21.6 (.85); tarsus 22.4 (.88). Females slightly smaller. Recognition Marks.—Towhee size. As compared with Icterus bullocki, with which alone it is likely to be confused, note yellow head, or “‘hood,’’ of male; much more extensive black of throat; tail black, not yellow, on under side; yellows less orange. Underparts entirely yellow in female and young. Nesting.— Nest: a closely woven basket, or hanging pouch, of fine vegetable fiber, usually composed externally of a single, uniform, selected material, and in Cali- fornia almost invariably the shredded fibers of the Washington Palm ( Neowashingtonia filifera), with some inner felting of vegetable down or feathers; lashed to the under side of a palm leaf or of other large protecting leaves. Eggs: 3 or 4, white or bluish white, sharply, sparingly and irregularly spotted, chiefly about the larger end, with purplish black and purpish gray. Av. size 21.6 x 15.4 (.85 x .61). Season: late April—-July; two broods. Range of Icterus cucullatus—Southern California, southern Arizona, and the lower valley of the Rio Grande, south to Honduras. Range of J. c. nelsoni.—Southern Ca ifornia, southern Arizona, and south- western New Mexico, south to Lower California and Tepic, Mexico; winters south of the United States. Distribution in California.»—Common summer resident, of local distribution in the Lower Sonoran zone of the lower Colorado River valley, the Colorado Desert and the San Diegan district, west to Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez (Aug. 19, 1917). There is a record for Auburn, Placer County (Bendire, Life Histories, vol. ii., 1895, p. 476); and the species is of probable occurrence in the Tulare basin. Authorities.—Cooper, Proc. Calif. Acad. Nat. Sci., vol. il., 1861, p. 122; Stephens, Auk, vol. i., 1884, p. 355 (nests); Ridgway, Proc. U. S. National Mus., vol. viii., 1885, p- 19 (description of nelsoni); Illingworth, Condor, vol. iii., 1901, pp. 98-100 (nests); Bailey, F. M., Auk, vol. xxvii., 1910, pp. 33-35, pls. iv., v. (nests in s. Calif.); Wear, Condor, vol. xvii., 1915, p. 234 (at Fresno). EXACT information regarding the Arizona Hooded Oriole is curi- ously lacking. The bird is rated common in Southern California; and most of us have seen its nest, a sturdy fistful of twisted palm fibers lashed midway of some protecting cluster of large leaves (sycamore or fig), or hung from the under side of a palm-leaf. Its brilliant colors, golden- yellow and black, with touches of white, mark the male bird for distinction, yet the bird is so modest, so retiring, or else so crafty, and so reticent withal. that our impressions of his personality seem to be very hazy. Much of our confusion is caused, no doubt, by the presence of its several-times more numerous, ten times noisier, and hundred times less go t 4 LA ‘ and threat black, The approaching maturity of male birds is characteriz idy intensification at the vellows, and extension of the black “bib; but t characters of the adult female are scubborniy retained above, and it is probable that the adult characters are tat dred until che third spring. In all males, advancing age is betokened by increaw: of thy orange element in the yellows, so that the color of the oldest birds ta « little pictur Gio “cadnium-yellow.”’ Length of adult male about 203.2 (8.00). Ay. of 10 (Miigwas). wing 88.4 (3.48); tail 89.9 (3.54); bill 21.6 (85); ) ” “tarsus 22.¢ 1.88), Pereies stabity acialler, i i Recognition Macks.--Towhee size, As compared with Icterus bullocki, with which alune it is Ghety ta he coefused, note yellow head, or “hood,” of male; much more estensive black of tliat; tail black, not yellow, on under side; yellows less orange. Underparis cettrel) yellow in female and, young, ; Nesting.--- Nest: a closely woven basket, or hanging pouch, of fine vegetable fiber, usually composed externally of a single, uniform, selected material, and in Cali- fornia almost invariably the shredded fibers of the Washington Palm ( Neowashingtonia Alifera), with some inner felting of vegetable down or feathers; lashed to the under side of. a palm leaf or of other large protecting leaves, Eggs: 3 or 4. white ar bluish white, _ shershy, sparingly and irregularly spotted, chiefly about the larger ead, with purplish black and purpish gray. Av. size 21.6 x 15.4 C85 x 61), Seasons late Apal-jaly; two broods. : es Range of Icterus cucullalus.—Southern California, southern Arizona, and the lower valley af the Rio Grande, south to Honduras. = Arizona, and) south- estera New Mexico, south to Lower California and Tepic, Mexivoy winters south, of ihe Winted Aiates, Rande of TP. < welsoni-—-Southern: Ca itlornia, southern Distribution in California.—Common summer resident. of idcal disteibution in the Lower Sonora: zone of Arizona Hooded Oriole: be Colorads Desert and the San Diegan district, event ‘ge ae a aarbare and bout ¥4 life size, 19, 7917): “There is a record for Auburn. Placer County (ea ire, de istories, Vol, ik, 1895, p. 476); and the species is of phUR@oeeeaemyaceuring w.tvomBepoks Awtharitles.—Cooper, Proc. Calif. Acad. Nat. Sci., vol. ii., 1861, p. 122; Stephens, Auk, voli, 188d, p 355 (nests); Ridgway, Proc. U.S. National Mus., vol. viii., 1885, yp, 19 fAescrtption of uelséer); Mmigworth, Condor, vol. iii, 1901, pp. 98-100 (nests); ey, A AE, Auk, wol, axvit., rote, pp: 33-36, pls. iv. ve (nests: in (sy Calif.); Wear, Spahr, oh. ses HOEK, Gd O4d fad Penna), if the Arizona Hooded Oriole is’ curi- ~ thern California: and «t pales Bbers lashed - woarmore or fig), or > iat color, golden- ” vic Lane bor dHatinetion, | an eradey. aad so teticent nex se be very hazy. . be the presence of its The Arizona Hooded Oriole bashful cousin, the Bullock Oriole. Indeed, our modest hero fairly skulks in the shadow cast by his more brilliant but not more beautiful kinsman. The writer once camped for a month under a tree which eventually cradled nests of both these species. Yet in that time I never heard a note which did not upon investigation trace to bullocki, nor see a distinctive movement of nelsont, save of the female at her nest. In view of this experience, I mistrust some of the observations already in print, and offer meager notes of my own with the utmost diffidence. The biographer of Icterus cucullatus nelsonz is still in training. The Arizona Hooded Oriole begins to arrive in California late in March. I say “‘begins to arrive’’ because I think it altogether probable that there are two streams or stocks of migrants, one arriving early and nesting in April and July, the other nesting only once, in late May or early June. Santa Barbara seems to be the usual limit of northern migration; but I once saw a pair east of Paso Robles (April 22, 1912); and Bendire gives it!, upon what authority I do not know, from Auburn, in Placer County. Late September, or earliest October, witnesses the departure of this species from the State. Although coming of a family famous for tuneful good cheer, the Arizona Hooded Oriole gives a poor account of himself as a songster. This does not seem to be so much for lack of ability as for lack of impulse. He is not of the noisy kind. When he does condescend to sing, it will be briefly, at daybreak or thereabouts. His vocal efforts are exceedingly variable both as to length and quality, now a weak rasping phrase, now a succession of sputtering squeaks, half musical and half wooden, and now a wild medley wherein are imbedded notes of a liquid purity. At its best it reminds one, just distantly, of Bobolink’s. Tsweetsee burr ho wick divoer, rendered in sprightly fashion, will give one a notion of its dashing inconsistency. But these singing phrases are exceedingly rare. And lest I be thought to exaggerate through lack of opportunity to observe, I may say that a pair of these birds has nested regularly in the yard of my next door neighbor since we came to California. The nest can be found at the appropriate season whenever we set out to look for it; yet so silent, so secretive, so utterly extra-mundane are the birds, we could forget their existence, were it not for an occasional chirp (or, more exactly, chweet) which is at least unmistakably Icterine. This very day (July 16, 1917), being reminded, I step over into Neighbor Hoover’s yard and search the nearest sycamore carefully. The tree is in high leaf, and the foliage fairly dense. Ah, there it is, nearly concealed in the drooping tip of one of the outermost branches, some twenty feet above the ground. By the help of some ladies (over-solicitous lLife Histories, Vol. I., p. 475, 1895. OL The Arizona Hooded Oriole of the birdman’s safety) I ascend a ladder balanced in an upright position, for the branch is a mere whip-end. There are three eggs, white, lightly spotted and briefly scrawled with dark reddish brown, utterly unlike the Bullock Oriole type. The nest is a rounded hammock, or deep cup, composed solely of fine, even strands of palm fiber, and made fast on its sides through numberless holes pierced in the substance of enveloping leaves. The cup is three inches wide and of a like depth, and boasts a scanty lining of white chicken-feathers. But all we hear of the owners is a faint chirp from the female, concealed in a distant thicket. It is not a time, evidently, for the risking of black-and-gold liveries. One season this local pair of birds behaved very strangely. Instead of getting down to business, the birds idled away the month of July making trial, or decoy, nests. These were invariably of palm fiber, carefully moulded but not always lined; and we found two in our tree yucca, two in Neighbor Hoover’s banana tree, and one in a small sycamore, all, apparently, the product of a single pair of birds. To what end was all the labor? Was milady so hard to please? Or were there possibly several miladies? A possible key to this strange conduct is afforded by the experience of another observer, Mrs. Bagg, of Santa Barbara. According to this lady, a male Hooded Oriole was observed day after day as he constructed a nest on the under side of a palm leaf on the Bagg demesne. No sign of the female was at any time seen during construction. When the edifice was completed, however, the young swain appeared one morning with two females. The ladies inspected the quarters minutely, and each arriving at the decision that the situation was one to be desired, fell into a dispute as to whose it should be. Finally, they set to and fought bitterly. The quarrel could not be decided in a single day, for each lady was de- termined to win home and fortune. Each day, therefore, they fought, until both were exhausted. Again and again they carried their battle to the ground, and might have been caught, so bitter was their hatred. The male, it seems, took no part in the conflict, but either looked on disgustedly, or took himself off to moralize on the depravity of woman- kind. Finally, one suitress gave in and left her rival in possession. Peace being established, the winner laid two eggs and sat happily for a few days, sat until her old enemy, having recruited her strength, returned to give battle. A fight ensued. The eggs were broken in the scrimmage, the nest dishevelled, and the conflict was transferred to parts unknown— certainly a sad case of misguided judgment on the part of one member of the sterner sex. The Scott Oriole No. 16 Scott’s Oriole A. O. U. No. 504. Icterus parisorum Bonaparte. Description.—Adult male in breeding plumage: Head and neck all around, breast, and back, jet black; remaining underparts (including axillars and under wing- coverts), rump, tail-coverts, and basal three-fifths of tail (one-third only on central pair), pure yellow (lemon-chrome); bend of wing and lesser and middle wing-coverts yellow, the last-named tipped with lighter yellow; the greater coverts and tertials tipped with white; rest of wing and tail black. Adult male in winter: ‘Similar to summer male, but white markings on wing much broader, feathers of back more or less margined with light gray, rump and upper tail coverts more strongly washed with olive or gray, and flanks more or less tinged with olive’ (Ridgway). Adult female in breeding plumage: Somewhat similar to adult male in spring, but black pure only on throat and chest, and there reduced in area; feathers on the borders of this area tipped with yellow; remainder of head and neck mingled olive-yellow and black the former in fine skirting; the back olive-gray with lighter skirtings and darker centers; rump and upper tail-coverts yellowish (citrine or oil-yellow); the tail brownish olive centrally and terminally, shading into oil-yellow basally and marginally; underparts yellow, pure only centrally on wing-linings, elsewhere washed with olivaceous; lesser and middle wing-coverts mingled with olive-yellow and black; the middle and greater coverts broadly white-tipped; remainder of wing grayish brown with lighter edgings. Im- mature male (through the second year?): Like adult female, but progressively blacker, anteriorly, especially below. Immature female: Like adult female but much duller; more sordid or olive-gray below and without black— olive-gray instead (through second year?); progressively brighter after first year (?), with gradual access of black anteriorly. The unmarked phase of the female Scott Oriole has been described as adult (i. e., Ridg- way, Bull. 50, U. S. N. M., pt. ii., p. 309), but the logic of development would seem to favor the explanation given, and black-throated examples abound. Juvenals (first plumage) differ from immature females, if at all, only in being more purely yellow on the posterior underparts. Length of males about 211 (8.30). Av. of 16 specimens (after Ridgway). wing 104.4 (4.10); tail 88.4 (3.48); bill 22.9 (.90); tarsus 23.9 (.94). Females average smaller. Recognition Marks.—Towhee size; foreparts entirely black, sharply contrasting with yellow rump and underparts of male. In all plumages greenish yellow as con- trasted with the reddish yellow of Icterus bullockt. Nesting.— Nest: a sturdy basket of twisted, interlaced, and broken grasses, plucked green; lined with finer grasses, seed pappus, or other soft substances; lashed to, or impaled upon, the narrow sword-like leaves of the yucca, and especially (in California) of the tree yuccas ( Yucca arborescens and Y. mohavensis) Eggs: 3 or 4, rarely 5, white or pale bluish white, marked sparingly with reddish brown or blackish. The markings are rounded, zigzag, or various, but show no tendency to scrolling, although there are occasional hints of coronal wreathing. The colors too are oftenest partially self-toned by virtue of superimposed lime, and there are sometimes minute frecklings which impart a dirty appearance to the egg. Av. size 23.8 x 17 (.94 x .67). Season: About May Ist (on the Mohave desert); one (?) brood. The Scott Oriole General Range.—Lower Sonoran zone from southern California, southwestern Utah, and western Texas, south to Lower California and through Mexico to Michoacan and Vera Cruz; winters south of the American border. Distribution in California.—Resident in summer in the arid Upper Sonoran fringes of the southeastern deserts, breeding from the tree yucca to the pinyon associa- tions, chiefly upon the flanks of the desert-facing mountains, north to the Inyo Moun- tains; also near San Diego (Browne), and on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada in Walker Pass, Kern County (Grinnell). Of casual occurrence during migrations in the San Diegan district, west to Santa Barbara (May 7, 1913). Authorities.—Cooper, Orn. Calif., 1870, p. 276; Browne, Auk, vol. viii., 1891, p. 238; Fisher, A. K., N. Amer. Fauna, no. 7, 1893, pp. 67-68 (range and nest); Anthony, Auk, vol. x., 1894, pp. 327-328 (in San Diego Co.); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Amer. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, pp. 471-474, pl. vi., figs. 28, 29 (habits, nest and eggs); Grinnell, Condor, vol. xil., 1910, p. 46 (range); Wallett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 71 (status in s. Calif.) Taken in San Bernardino County Pholo by Wright M. Pierce NEST OF SCOTT'S ORIOLE—SUSPENDED FROM YUCCA BRANCHES “AWAKENING SONGS” are all very well for poets and milk peddlers, who require little sleep, but they are much resented by the average Californian, and especially by those of us who affect sleeping porches. It is for this reason that the author, blessed (or plagued) with a keen sense of hearing, confesses to sleeping with a huge pillow plastered over his ear. But the angel of bird-men, relentless as a Pullman porter, 94 The Scott Oriole earned my special gratitude when on a certain May morning he roused me, regardless, to listen to a golden song which poured down from a syca- more tree hard by. Ly tz tz tee to, tt ly ti tt te to, came the compelling out- burst. I took it for a freak Mead- owlark song at first, but once (en © ie © wl & Im Why aroused, knew it | iO Ain ICreimune == carol—ly tt tt tee to, Taken in San Bernardino County Photo by Wright M. Pierce ta ly tt tt tee to— molten notes with a fond thrill to them, more restrained than the clarion of the Meadow- lark, smoother and sweeter than the tumult of a Bullock Oriole, and, of course, with the double repetition, a much longer song than either. This episode signalized the westernmost appearance of this gifted musi- cian, and necessitated, I regret to say, mortuary rites. Maturer im- pressions, obtained in Arizona in a more characteristic setting of pinyons, scattering live oaks, and the inevitable yuccas, confirmed the judg- ment of a rare quality in this Oriole’s song. Again and again we started up with the thought of Meadowlark (at an unlikely altitude of 5000 feet), and were as often disarmed by the subtle restraint, the unexampled purity and the faint melancholy of the concluding notes. All around was tense silence, dryness, and appalling heat, the desolation of mid- day in the desert foothills. Ly ty ti ti tee to, ly ty ti tt tee to, cut across the dry silences like the voice of a spirit treading the plains of asphodel. How important an element this song becomes in the life of the high deserts, Scott testifies in his classical first description of the bird’s habits :! “Few birds sing more incessantly, and in fact I do not recall a species in the Eastern or Middle States that is to be heard as frequently. The males are, of course, the chief performers, but now and again, near a nest, SCOTT’S ORIOLE—A SECOND YEAR MALE 1W. E. D. Scott, The Auk, Vol. II., Jan. 1885. 95 The Scott Oriole while watching the birds, I would detect a female singing the same glad song, only more softly. At the earliest daybreak and all day long, even when the sun is at its highest, and during the great heat of the afternoon, its very musical whistle is one of the few bird songs that are ever present.” Unfortunately, the singers are very shy, and the pursuit of their ravishing notes all too rarely yields a view of the handsome singer, with his blackest of heads and his most intensely yellow under-plumage. Even the females, who are much duller in appearance, will slyly forsake their nests upon the distant approach of the stranger, and will oftenest remain concealed, or absent themselves, while the nest is being examined. Typically, the birds nest in the tree yuccas, whether in the Joshua tree (Yucca arborescens) of the eastern desert ranges and the Walker’s Pass region, or in the Mohave Yucca ( Y.mohavensis Sargent) of the Antelope Valley and the northern slopes of the San Bernardino range. Further south yuccas of the sword-bayonet type (Y. baccata and related forms) furnish shelter, and the palms (Washingtonia filifera) of Palm Canyon and other valleys, are accepted as substitutes. In default of these, Scott’s Oriole has been known to nest in pinyons or live oaks or even sycamores. When in the yuccas, nests are, of necessity, placed at moderate heights, four to ten feet. The edges of descending leaves of the plant are frayed or notched, to serve for the attachment of the threads which support the nest. A deep cup is woven out of yucca fibers or grasses, occasionally supplemented by horsehair, and the linings boast either cotton waste or finely shredded hemp. From its semi-desert association, the food of Scott’s Oriole must consist chiefly of insects, supplemented, possibly, by nectar. Mrs. Kate Stephens once saw an Oriole drink deeply from the tubular orange flowers of the aloe, and thinks that they find nourishment also in the blossoms of tree tobacco.! Bendire notes? their eating the ripe fruit of the giant cactus; and Dr. Grinnell? took specimens at Fairmont which were gorged with apricots. We have, evidently, much to learn yet of the comings and goings of Scott’s Oriole. Most recorded appearances fall within the dates April Ist and September 15th; but Stephens has seen them at San Diego as early as Feb. 26 (1916)4; and W. B. Judson took a specimen in the San Fernando Valley, Nov. 2, 1903.° The vicinity of San Diego has been favored with many recent appearances, and it is quite possible that 1Condor, Vol. VIII., p. 130. 2“Vife Histories,"’ Vol. I., p. 473. 8Condor, Vol. XII., p. 46. 4Condor, Vol. XVIII, May, 1916, p. 130. 5Condor, Vol. VI., p. 25. 96 The Bullock Oriole the species is slowly extending its range. Its normal choice of altitude, however, from 4000 to 6000, is rather narrowly represented in the Upper Sonoran zone of California, and its total population does not begin to compare with either J. bullocki or I. cucullatus nelsoni. No. 17 Bullock’s Oriole A. O. U. No. 508. Icterus bullocki (Swainson). Description.—Adult male: Black, white, and orange; bill, lore, a line through eye, and throat (narrowly) jet black; pileum, back, scapulars, lesser wing-coverts, primary coverts, and tertials, chiefly black, or with a little yellowish skirting; remiges black edged with white; middle and greater coverts, continuous with edging of tertials and secondaries, white, forming a large patch; tail chiefly cadmium-yellow, but central pair of rectrices black on exposed area, and remaining pairs tipped with blackish; remaining plumage, including supraloral areas continuous with superciliaries, orange (cadmium-orange in oldest examples), most intense on sides of throat and chest, shading on lower breast to cadmium-yellow posteriorly; rump washed with olivaceous. In younger adults the orange is less intense, and the tail is more extensively black. Bill black above, bluish below; feet and legs (drying) dusky horn color. Adult female: Above drab-gray, clearest on rump and upper tail-coverts; washed with yellow on head; wings fuscous with whitish edging; pattern of white in coverts of male retained, but much reduced in area; tail nearly uniform dusky orange (aniline yellow to old gold); sides of throat and chest wax-yellow (with irruptions of orange in older birds); chin and throat (narrowly) and remaining underparts sordid white or pale creamy buff; the under tail-coverts usually (but not always) tinged with yellow. Immature male: Like adult female; yellows of head and throat stronger. Young male in first spring: Like adult female, but sides of head, throat, and breast aniline yellow; lores, chin, and throat narrowly black. Birds breed in this plumage, and it is uncertain whether or not it may be carried into the second year. Length of adult male about 210 (8.25); wing 100 (3.94); tail 79 (3.11); bill 18.5 (.73) tarsus 25 (.98). Female somewhat smaller , Recognition Marks.—Towhee size; black, white, and orange coloration; top of head black, and under side of tail yellow, as contrasted with the Arizona Hooded Oriole. Females and young extensively whitish below. Note slender, blackish bill of female, as contrasted with heavy, light-colored bill of Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana) ; wing-bars white; underparts with contrasting yellow and whitish, where the Tanager is uniform greenish yellow. Nesting.— Nest: A pendent pouch of elaborately interwoven grasses, vegetable fibers, string, or horsehair, either uniform or variously composed; 5 to 9 inches in depth, and lashed by brim, or suspended by lengthened filaments, to branches of deciduous trees, usually at moderate heights. Eggs: Usually 5; elongate ovate; grayish white or bluish white as to ground, or, rarely, tinged with claret, boldly and intricately scrawled with pen lines, fine or broad, of purplish black. The pattern tends to confluence in a coronal wreath, or cloud cap, and appears as though traced continuously through many 97 The Bullock Oriole revolutions. Av. size 23.9 x 16 (.94 x .63). Season: May-June; one brood. Extreme nesting dates are: Claremont, April 25, 1901, by W. M. Pierce; and Pasadena, July 18, 1894, by H. A. Gaylord. General Range.—Western North America, breeding from southern British Columbia and southern Saskatchewan south to northern Mexico, and from South Dakota and western Kansas to the Pacific; wintering in Mexico south to Colima, Guerrero, and Puebla. Distribution in California.—‘‘Abundant summer resident in many parts of the State—from the Nevada line to the seacoast, and from the Oregon line to the Mexi- can boundary. Of very general zonal and faunal preferences; breeds from Lower Sonoran up through Transition, and from the riparian association on the deserts (as along the Colorado River) to the San Francisco Bay region. Of least abundance in the northwest coast belt and on the Santa Barbara Islands, though there are records from both. Occurs in migrations even on the arid portions of the southeastern deserts, and up into the high mountains. Centers of abundance are the interior valleys north of Tehachapi.’ (Grinnell). Authorities.—Audubon, Orn. Biog., vol. v., 1839, pp. 9-11; Gambel, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. iii., 1847, p. 204 (migration; song; nest); Heermann, Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. x., pt. vi., 1859, p. 52 (habits, etc.) ; [//ingworth, Condor, vol. iii., 1901, pp. 98-100 (nests); Sharp, Condor, vol. v., 1903, pp. 38-42, 3 figs. (unusual nests); Beal, Biol. Survey Bull., no. 34, 1910, pp. 68-71, pl. x. (food). THANK God for Wonder! What is it but a pleased interest in the unfolding panorama of life? We consider it the special attribute of childhood, because life is new to the child; but woe to us when we cease to wonder! It isa sign that we have ceased to live. For in the last analysis, Wonder is Worship—a recognition of the presence of God and ecstatic joy thereat. I bring a chance acquaintance to view my collection of eggs. He glances patronizingly at the painted ovals, murmurs, ‘‘I see,’’ when I point out an example of protective harmony, and stifles a yawn when I discourse upon the niceties of hummingbird architecture. He isn’t interested. What I have proposed for common ground he cannot accept as such. His thoughts are elsewhere. He does not wonder! Another gazes with delight upon the unfolded treasures, gives little shrieks of appreciation at each successive burst of color, and marvels ecstaticallv over the exquisite traceries of the Oriole. He is manifestly interested in that which interests me. I have given him pleasure. He wonders, and is by so much more my friend. It is not otherwise with the soul and God. Our Heavenly Father has devised the myriad show of Nature, and has brought us to view it. If we gaze with unseeing eyes, if we turn quickly away, we offend him. He has labored in vain, and the Creator’s heart is in so far saddened. But if, on the other hand, we enter with deep appreciation into the storehouse 98 The Bullock Oriole Siok Ait Av. size 23.90 x 16 (.94 x .63). Sexson: May-June: one brood, nesting dates are: Claremont, April 25. 1903, by W. M. Pierce; and Pasadena, July 18, ‘y894, by H. A. Gaylord. General Range.—Western Neeth Ameriea. breeding from southern British Columbia and southern Saskaichesws seve to aerthern Mexico,:and from South Dakota and western Inanses 40 ?hy Paste: wintering in Mexico south to Colima, Guerrero, and Puebla. : Distribution ig lokwp aah “Misuetant suimmer resident in many parts of the State-—trocs the News ie wesroas, and from the Oregon line to the Mexi- can. boundary. 0% hie ; an Suunal preferences; breeds from Lower Sonoran weigh F eiureelts 4 (ay riparian association on the deserts (as Bone She if! piper. Sark s Fvangisco Bay region, Of least abundance in the r Meviera Telands, though there are records from ee ge avid yerttions of the southeastern deserts, and i oueee af abundance are the interior valleys north of Richy, wot. Vi, LBRO: Pe. a +1. Gambel, Proc. Acad? (aivration: seats Hes » Eeermann, Rept. Pac. : ; sudor. vol, Hi.; 2905, Ewe. Capusual nein e aan aaa GY Manes | 4 iy tease? dyterest mn the Wane Hh ; it See eectal ateribute of HRs | Male and female, about % Liles his os wien weleadee (0 sige that we have ceased to ve. For in the last analysis, ter Is . citehige-a recopnigon af the presence of God and ecstatic wy “the WISE, ! bring a chance acquaintance to view my pellet of eggs. He glances patronizingly at the painted ovals, murmurs, “I sée,’’ when | point out an example of protective harmony, and stifles a yawn when I discourse upon the niceties of hummingbird architecture. He isn’t~ interested. What I have proposed for common ground he cannot accept as such. His thoughts are elsewhere. He does not wonder! Another gazes with delight upon the unfolded treamires, gives little shrieks of appreciation at each successive burst of cnicr, and marvels ecstaticallv over the exquisite traceries of the Oriole, ie is avanifestly interested in that which interests me. | have given hint pivaware, He wonders, and is by so mich more my friend. at oy i¢ is not otherwise with the seul and tied. Our Heavenly Father —- has devised the myriad show of Nature, aad has brought us to view it. If we gaze with unsecing eyes, if we turn qubekiy way, we offend him. — He has labored in vain, and the Creator's heart is in so far saddened. But” if, on the other hand, we enter with deep appreciation into the storehouse 98 The Bullock Oriole of Nature, if we pass with reverent ecstacy from one marvel to another, or if we gaze with kindling enthusiasm upon a single example of his perfect work, we declare ourselves to be of his sort. We are manifestly pleased, and his pleasure is in the sight of ours. We hold communion with him in wonder no less than in praise. Rightly considered, wonder is worship, and God hath not wrought in vain. And what marvel in all nature shall exceed that offered in the delicate, fantastic traceries of a Bullock Oriole’s egg! On a background of palest bluish gray, the calligraphist, having dipped his pen in a well of purplish black, proceeds to scrawl and shade, to zigzag and flourish and vibrate— all this while the obedient oval turns round and round. Now as the egg revolves for a dozen turns, the artist bears on with laborious care. . Now he lifts the pen; and now, return- ing, he loiters while the ink runs out upon the page in little pools of indelible blackness. Quaint and fanciful, indeed, are the divagations of the Icterine genius. With all the world before him, why should he not choose to be fantastic? On a specimen be- fore me there are traceries which vary in width from one twen- tieth of an inch to one ten- thousandth. Some of them stand forth like the lines of an engraved visiting card, while others require a magnifying glass to recall Photo by Wm. H. Wonfor their nebulous course to Visi- 4 rypicaL SET OF BULLOCK ORIOLE’S EGGS bility. On another egg twelve in- dependent lines pass unheeding within a total space of one tenth of an inch, while the smaller end of the same egg is perfectly bare. Here the weird image of a goblin piper braces itself on legs set rakishly awry, and strains away at a splintered flute—all within the space of a barley-corn. There a cable of twisted purple ropes frays suddenly and goes off into gossamer hysterics. Another egg, tottering under its burden of pigment, shows lines curiously shadowed, or ‘“‘side-wiped.’’ It is all so fascinating, so bewildering, and so mysterious! What is it all for?. An easy answer would be that it is a phase of protective coloration. I can testify that in the special circumstances of a nest wherein scanty 99 The Bullock Oriole coils of black horsehair show up in high relief against the remaining background of normal white vegetable felt, these eggs are almost indis- tinguishable from their surroundings. They are obliteratively colored. But what of that? The nest of the Oriole is so deep, and its eggs so much in shadow that, were they purest white, they would scarcely show. And if they were green or blue, it would not matter. No; I prefer to think that the artist wishes to be fan- tastic. And he gets his way. While each set of eggs shows a prevailing or unifying motif, each component egg is individually dis- tinct. No two objects in nature are exactly alike; and never by any chance does the master decorator of birds’ eggs repeat himself. But, after all, eggs are as may be. However curiously we may admire the Creator’s versatility, it is in the conscious artistry of the Photo by F. S. Merrill bird herself that we most openly FEMALE BULLOCK ORIOLE rejoice. The Oriole does not de- sign her eggs, but she does design their receptacle; and perhaps nowhere else in nature are art and utility more happily blended. Certainly the selective process of art is nowhere else more clearly exemplified than in the nests of Bullock’s Oriole. Guided, of necessity, by materials at hand, the bird, nevertheless, in each instance achieves something individual, dis- tinctive. Even with a wealth of varied materials available, the artist either makes rigid selection of one, as, black horse-hair, white string, or gray bark fiber; or else works out some happy combination of two or three, as, black horse-hair decorated with tufts of cotton, white string relieved by strands of red, gray bark uniformly interspersed with bluish threads. Exceptions to this, the olla podrida sort, are very rare. The artistry of the Bullock Oriole is strikingly comparable to that of the Baltimore Oriole, or ‘“‘Hangnest,”’ of the East, and its fabrications are similarly purse-shaped, of elaborate and highly finished weave. The Bullock’s nests are not, however, so frequently secured by the brim alone, nor so conspicuously depended from the tips of drooping branches. They are apt to be, also, of a more open weave, as befits a warmer climate, and I0O The Bullock Oriole one wherein summer rains play little or no part. Nesting, as it does, from the highlands of Mexico north to British Columbia, the Bullock Oriole shelters in a great variety of host trees, mesquite, willow, sycamore, cottonwood, oak, pine even, not to mention every conceivable variety of the larger shrubs. Because the variation in construction is so infinite, five examples from the M. C. O. collections, taken in California, must suffice: Nest K1604%, lashed throughout to descending twigs of cottonwood; is composed of horse-hair of three shades, with slight admixture of string, and is decorated sparingly with small white feathers. Lining, confined to bottom third, of white feathers. Measures 7 inches deep by 4 wide overall. Inside depth, from lowest portion of brim, 3% inches. Opening, 21% by 3. Weight with included twigs exactly half an ounce. Taken in Washington Photo by the Author AN UNUSUAL NESTING SITE—IN THE TIP OF A WILLOW SAPLING Nest K130%%, likewise lashed to descending twigs of cottonwood; light open pattern of horsehair, chiefly black. Copious lining of white cotton batting is anchored by being pulled through the meshes from the outside, presenting a handsomely tufted appearance. Depth over all, 6 inches; breadth 41%. Inside depth from brim 3% inches. Width of opening 21% inches. IOI The Bullock Oriole Nest K112%%, made fast by brim and side supports to branch of white oak; composed wholly of coarse dried grasses, chiefly fox-tail, the heads of which are turned outside and left as bristling decorations; a mere pinch of feathers in lining. Depth over all 7 inches; width 6; inside depth from brim 4; width of opening 2 by 3. Nest 44'/,,, composed of fine dry grasses well weathered. Completely invested by drooping cluster of white oak twigs; built up with gradual convergence until the opening, one inch by one and a half across, too small to be functional, and so abandoned. Nest Ro5*/,, (from Arizona). Rigidly supported by forking limbs of a horizontal branch of osage orange, and built up above supports; less pensile than a vireo’s nest. A thick-walled structure of mingled horse- hair, string, and cotton waste, so copious as not to require special lining. Measures, outside, 4 inches in depth by 4% in width. Inside 3% inches in depth. Opening 2 by 3. Some very interesting nests of this species have been described by Mr. C. S. Sharp! from Escondido, in which the stems and heads of wild oats were almost the sole material employed. The straggly projecting heads of this grain made a striking and unusual effect for a bird whose habits are a synonym for neatness. Most of the actual work of nest construction is carried out by the female, while her mate trails about helplessly, or else applauds her efforts in song. But one observer, Mr. J. F. Illingworth,? declares that both birds labor in the construction of the walls, that one posts itself inside the nest and the other outside, and that the thread is passed back and forth from one to the other, until the nest is thoroughly ‘‘darned.’’ Be this as it may, it is the female who makes the selection of material, and does all the ‘‘rustling.’’ Watching a bird at this perennial quest is no end of fun. Once, in camp near Dos Palos, a Bullock Oriole paid us a visit just as the cook was announcing breakfast. All eyes were turned upon her. She spied the dish-towel drying on the fence, sidled up to it, sampled a thread, tested it carefully throughout its length, found it satisfactory, and flew off with it. While she was absent I put up two lengths of red string for her approval. On returning, she decided that the dishcloth was on the whole too weak for her purpose and passed it up. Then she nibbled at the red strings meditatively, as who should say, ‘Too bad these ar’n’t white, now isn't it?’’ let them fall unheeded, and passed on. Next she lighted on the automobile, seized a tarpaulin tape, wrestled with it, and in the scrimmage fell over the corner and down with the unwinding tape, like a spider descending on its own belly- 'Condor, Vol. V.,. March, 1903, pp. 38-42. ?Condor, Vol. III, July, 1901, p. 99. I02 The Bullock Oriole string. But, nothing daunted, the Oriole returned and climbed up and down the fluttering sheet until she found it quite hopeless. Then she fell upon the thread which held the two halves of the tarpaulin together. This she pried and twisted and unthreaded until she had quite a respect- able length loose. I thought she would have made off with it, but a fracas among her own kind hard by dissuaded her for the moment, and our appetites reasserted themselves. Little space remains to recount the wonder of the birds themselves. They, or at least the males, are among the half dozen brightest of Cali- fornia’s birds; and they are, perhaps, more widely distributed than any other of our “‘birds of plumage.” Act- ive, industrious, and not unconfiding bodies they are too, and avery im- portant element in the good cheer of springtide. The males arrive a week or two in advance of their mates, and appear quite ill at ease until joined by their shy com- panions. “‘Arrange- meOmcea Aire, Ou course, not com- plete, and the ardent courtships which ensue are of interest to spectators as well as participants. Only a moment ago I saw two males pursuing a female who evidently wished very much to be excused from an immediate decision. One of the males was a dull-colored young bird, and the other was a gorgeous old major in full regimentals. The young fellow kept the lead and pursued his object with dogged persistence; but the old fellow, wiser in the ways of women, paused now and then to pour out his heart in song. My sympathies—a— well—ahem—they used always to be with the young chap, but now Id aetatis jam sumus. The Bullock Oriole is either musical or noisy, but oftener both together. Both sexes indulge a stirring rattle which seems to express nearly every variety of emotion. Upon this the male grafts a musical Photo by Wm. H. Wonfor EGGS OF THE BULLOCK ORIOLE SELECTED SPECIMENS—SAND BACKGROUND 703 The Tricolored Redwing outcry, so that the whole approaches song. A purer song phrase more rarely indulged in may be syllabized as follows: Cut cut cudut whee up chooup. The last note comes sharp and clear, or, as often, trails off into an indistinguishable jumble. The questing note, or single call, of the male is one of the sweetest sounds of springtime, but an even more domestic sound, chirp trap, uttered while he is trailing about after his swinking spouse, appears ridiculously prosaic. Once, in a mesquite grove, under the influence, I doubt not, of the rowdy Chat, an infatuated Oriole did a clog dance across an open space. With exaggerated laboriousness he smote his wings together over his back half a dozen times, then dashed into a thicket, whither his Juliet had, no doubt, preceded him. Perridiculus! No. 18 Tricolored Redwing A. O. U. No. 500. Agelaius tricolor (Audubon). Synonyms.—TRICOLORED BLACKBIRD. TRICOLORED RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD RED-AND-WHITE-SHOULDERED BLACKBIRD. Description.—Adult male in spring: Glossy black with greenish or bluish reflections (slightly more pronounced than in A. phoeniceus); the lesser wing-coverts rich red (carmine —darker than in A. phoeniceus); middle coverts pure white, appearing as a broad transverse band below the red. Bill and feet black. Adult male in fall and winter: As in spring, but feathers lightly skirted, especially on back, pileum, sides of neck, and breast, with rusty gray; the white of the middle wing-coverts more or less tinged with brownish buff. Immature males: (Not seen) probably exaggerate the characters of the adult male in autumn, and closely parallel the course of A. phoeniceus. Yearling male in first spring: Like adult, but lesser wing-coverts tawny or brownish red, variously admixed with black; the middle coverts wholly black, or variously mixed black and white. Adult female in spring: Similar to that of Agelaius phoeniceus, but more uniform in coloration and much darker; above sooty black, nearly uniform, from back posteriorly, but with some obscure skirtings of brownish gray on head and nape; below sooty black, nearly uniform, from breast posteriorly, although with faint skirtings of lighter, or whitish—these skirtings sharply defined on lower tail-coverts; breast min- gled black and whitish in about equal proportions, clearing anteriorly to white, sparingly flecked with black on throat; an obscure whitish line over eye; lateral coloration through- out blending the characters of upper and lower plumage; a dull ruddy element often present in the whites, and (in older examples?) the lesser wing-coverts more or less skirted with dark red. Adult female in autumn: Asin spring, but plumage softer and much more extensively margined above with brownish gray, below with whitish (in this stage closely resembling the female of A. phoeniceus in spring). Immature female: Like adult female in autumn, but still more heavily margined; a rusty element appearing 104 Sasi, iy ANE | a pemright 1981 dy BOL. Bove aie ese aa fs ! outery, so that the whole approaches song. A purer song ont more rarely indulged in may he syVabized as follows: Cui cut cudut whee up chooup. The last note comes sharp and clear, or, as often, trails offinto an indistinguishable jumble. The questing note, or single call, of the male is one of the sweetest sounds of springtime, but an even more domestic sound,