CALIFORNIA SPOTTED OWL 203 



eggs, probably laid by the descendants of the original pair; and 

 again in 1926 they took another set of three eggs, making the fourth 

 set taken from the same old nesting hole, and from at least two 

 pairs of owls. In 1927 and 1928 this locality was visited, but the 

 old cavity was not occupied. In 1929 the Peytons offered to show 

 me the localit}^ on the slight chance that the owls might be there 

 again. This proved to be a successful venture, for we were delighted 

 to see the head of the old owl on the nest as we approached the cliff, 

 on April 1, 1929. 



The locality was reached after a 5-mile tramp over a rough trail, 

 which crossed a clear mountain stream many times. The canyon 

 varied greatly in width, from narrow gorges, walled in on one or both 

 sides with high, rocky cliffs, to open wooded valleys, or wide flat 

 parks, or pastures. It was mostly well timbered with oak, cotton- 

 wood, willow, sycamore, and alder trees, many of large size; and along 

 the more open, gravelly bed of the stream was a considerable growth 

 of small wallows and shrubbery of various kinds. At the picturesque 

 nesting site the stream flowed in a double curve over a stony bed 

 and through a narrow gorge. On the south side of the gorge an almost 

 perpendicular cliff of rough granite rock rose for nearly 200 feet, 

 shutting out the sunlight (pi. 50). On the north side was a steep 

 rocky slope and near the nest was a tall Cottonwood tree, the owl's 

 favorite perch. The nest was in a roomy cavity about 15 feet up 

 from the bottom of the granite cliff; the cavity was nearly three feet 

 deep, and the two eggs lay on a bed of rubbish, bones of small mam- 

 mals, feathers of the owl, and a lot of pellets. 



Donald R. Dickey found a nest in Ventura County, Calif., con- 

 taining two well-grown young on May 15, 1913, of which W. Leon 

 Dawson (1923) writes: "The situation was an old Raven's nest, 

 placed 65 feet up in a pothole, on a perpendicular cliff of conglomerate 

 over 200 feet high." A set in my collection was taken by T. D. 

 Hurd from a "depression in the floor of a small cave, or washout in 

 a clay bank", near Riverside, Calif., on April 24, 1886. A set of two 

 eggs in the J. P. Norris collection was taken in the same region by 

 E. M. Haight on May 10, 1885. "The eggs were laid on the bare 

 ground, at the base of a large rock, and the only attempt at nest 

 building was the presence of a few feathers tying around." Harry 

 H. Dunn (1901) took three sets of eggs from cavities in trees in 

 southern California; one was in an oak stub some 10 feet from the 

 ground on the side of a canyon; the second was "in an old hollow 

 sycamore stub, which had fallen slanting across the creek bed" in 

 Santa Ana canyon; and the third was 20 feet from the ground in a 

 hole in a live oak. Apparently these owls seldom occupy old, open 

 nests of other birds; but there is a set in the Thayer collection, taken 

 by Fred Truesdale, in San Luis Obispo County, from an old hawk's 



