STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 125 



of their nocturnal habits. A pair of the common barn owls, known by 

 their yellowish color, white beneath, have been watched and seen to 

 bring an incredible number of mice and rats to the nest in one night, 

 while they did not trouble themselves about the fowls. Smaller kinds, 

 like the burrowing owls, as well as small hawks, feed much on grasshop- 

 pers and other insects. The great California vulture is said sometimes 

 to attack sickly lambs, etc. It is not, however, numei-ous enough to do 

 much harm ; and the common kind, or turkey buzzard, is usually pro- 

 tected on account of its usefulness in eating dead animals. 



Of our twenty-six hawks and eagles, those kinds that are nearly 

 or quite black are of special interest to naturalists, and all such speci- 

 mens are valuable. 



Of the owls, a large species without ear tufts, banded, above and below 

 with broad transverse stripes, is desirable, as but one species is yet 

 known in collections. Another still larger, and uniform gray, is to be 

 looked for in the high mountains; and at the other extreme in size is a 

 new species found in Colorado Valley, less than six inches long, with 

 bare legs. 



Of the insectivorous birds, the curious and beautiful " road-runner," 

 also called " chapparel cock," " paisano," etc., is one of the most inter- 

 esting. It not only eats great numbers of insects but is said to destroy 

 rattlesnakes and other kinds, being probably somewhat omnivorous. 

 Little is yet known of its habits or history. 



The American cuckoo, or " raincrow," is one of the few birds that eat 

 the hairy caterpillar, on apple and other trees. Few of these birds have 

 been observed in this State, and specimens are wanted. 



The woodpeckers, of which we have sixteen species, nearly all beau- 

 tiful, are almost entirely insect eaters, though occasionally eating a little 

 fruit, which they fairly earn by their usefulness. Though some kinds 

 have a habit of pecking shallow holes in the bark of apple trees, appa- 

 rently to suck the sap, yet it has never been shown that this does the 

 tree any injury, the holes scarcc^l}^ extending half through the bark. 

 Several of them are rare in collections, but these kinds are found chiefly 

 on the highest parts of the Sierra Nevada. 



Six species of humming birds are known to be found in this State, and 

 are great destroyers of insects, though they also suck the honey from 

 flowers. Specimens of the kinds found easL of the Sierra Nevada are 

 very much wanted. 



There are about twenty-two species of the swallow and flj'catcher 

 families in California, of which none are noteworthy as needing protec- 

 tion, since their well known and wholly insectivorous habits make them 

 welcome everywhere. The cliff" swallow alone is driven away from the 

 eaves of some houses where it attempts to build its bottle sliai)ed nest, 

 because some persons accuse it of harboring bed bugs in its nest. This 

 requires investigation, as it is very probable that these insects are not 

 true bed bugs, but a kind of bird lice resembling them, and not likely to 

 trouble liuman beings. Almost every bird is infested with some kind of 

 parasitic insect, and generally those found on each kind of bird differ 

 from all others, and will not trouble any other bird. If bed bugs really 

 do infe.>t swallows' nests, they doubtless go into them from the house on 

 which they ai'e built, and not brought there by the swallows themselves. 

 The western wdiippoorwill, and night hawk or ■' bull bat," are the noc- 

 turnal insect eaters in the class of birds, just as the bats are among the 

 mammals. 



The ridiculous superstitions which careless observation and reasoning 



