204 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



colors, which, judging from the smell, must have been taken from dead 

 sheep; this was mixed with such matter as cows' hair, bits of hemp 

 rope, and pieces of cloth. They varied in height from 18 to 24 inches ; 

 a typical nest measured 24 incjies in outside diameter, 14 inches across 

 the lining, and the inner cavity was 8 inches in diameter and 5 or 6 

 inches deep. The birds usually left the nests as we approached, but 

 some remained on until we were part way up the ladder. One bird did 

 not fly until my head was nearly on a level with the nest. Some birds 

 departed at once, but others flew around close by, croaking. 



A few other nests were noted in various parts of California, mostly 

 inaccessible, on rocky cliffs or in potholes in sandstone cliffs. One that 

 I saw when I was out with the Peyton brothers in Ventura County, 

 on April 7, 1929, was in a pothole in a perpendicular sandstone cliff, 

 about 50 feet high; the nest was about 30 feet from the bottom of the 

 cjiff and was reached with the aid of a rope ladder. The nest was made 

 of sagebrush and other sticks and was lined with cows' hair of various 

 colors, bits of rag, and strips of yucca fiber. It contained five eggs. 



I saw no tree nests in California, except one shown to me by Wright 

 M. Pierce; this was in a Joshua tree on the Mohave Desert (pi. 36). And 

 Major Bendire (1895) says that about Camp Harney, Oreg., where 

 ravens were very common, "out of some twenty nests examined only 

 one was placed in a tree. It was in a good-sized dead willow, 20 feet 

 from the ground, on an island in Sylvies River, Oregon, and easily 

 reached; it contained five fresh eggs on April 13, 1875." Dawson (1923) 

 mentions a California nest in the top of a white oak, and remarks : "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 exception- 

 ally common." 



In central Lower California, according to Griffing Bancroft (1930), 

 "they build in a normal manner on cliffs or more often in tree yucca 

 or multifingered cardon." And Dickey and van Rossem (1938) say, 

 referring to El Salvador: "On February 8, 1927, a pair of ravens was 

 found working on a nest in the topmost branches of a forty-foot pine 

 at an elevetion of about 7,000 feet on Los Esesmiles. The tree was one 

 of a group of half a dozen growing on a bare ridge and was directly 

 above a trail over which a dozen or more people traveled daily. This 

 nest could be seen half a mile away and would have been conspic.uous 

 even without the presence of the builders, both of which were constantly 

 arriving and departing." 



James B. Dixon (MS.) tells me that in San Diego County the ravens 

 nest in trees nearly as much as on cliffs; out of the ten records of nests 



