50 



THE OSPREY. 



Our camp two miles inland at the forks of the 

 the river in the shade of a ^'■iant redwood was 

 an ideal one. Tlie surroundin<^ country was 

 once thickly wooded but the best timber had 

 been cut down leaving- the smaller trees, thick 

 brush, and here and there a great redwood or 

 tall pine standing. 



Considering- the abundance of trout in these 

 coast streams, the numberless Belted KingHshers 

 are accounted for. On May 2.^, along' the North 

 Fork I found a nest of this bird containing- six 

 young and one addled eg-g-. On June 1, they 



with amazing quickness after the same prey. 

 One of the latter was stunned with a iishing 

 pole but feig"ning- death it got away. 



On June 3, we started up the coast where the 

 avifauna possessed much of a sameness. 

 Nuttall's Sparrow was the typical and some- 

 times the onU' bird to be seen. An occasional 

 Western Meadowlark or House Finch did his 

 best to counteract the saddening- effect of the 

 sparrow's song-. A large llock of Band-tailed 

 Pigeons numbering- over seventy individuals 

 was seen on a grassv tract along the cliffs. 



Young Kingfishers on a Log. 



were placed on a log and photographed, and 

 what a racket the old Kingfisher made when 

 she returned with her usual fish to find her off- 

 spring trying to look pleasanti Fh'ing back 

 and forth, she uttered her clattering cry contin- 

 uously. 



The nesting season was about over here: 

 Chickadees were already peeping from niches 

 in the laurel trees; Song Sparrows evinced 

 great anxiety when a nest was approached and 

 the young, generally full fledged, scrambled 

 into the bush. Prettily spotted young Western 

 Robins were common, and Blue-fronted Jays, 

 whose family cares long over, were now and 

 then seen feeding young as large as themselves. 

 Towards evening the song of the Russet-backed 

 Thrush came from the solitudes with an occa- 

 sional chipping in of a Western Robin or Black- 

 headed Grosbeak. Multitudes of swifts and 

 bats, silent and almost indistinguishable, darted 



Two daj's of steady travel brought us to 

 Mountain View, in the heart of the Coast Range 

 Mountains, where I had the good fortune to take 

 a set of four eggs of the Louisiana Tanager. 

 Placed near the end of a thick pine branch 

 about fifteen feet from the ground the nest was 

 well concealed and hard to reach. When prepa- 

 rations for climbing the tree were made, the fe- 

 male slipped off' the nest and was lost in the 

 thick foliage but soon returned with her mate. 

 The nest, a flat structure, is composed of root- 

 lets and moss and lined with horse hair. 



We reached Blue Lakes (Lake Co.) on June 7. 

 These lakes, three in number, are each about 

 three quarters of a mile long and four hundred 

 j'ards wide. The surrounding countrA' is moun- 

 tainous, dry and parched, and covered with a 

 scrubby brush called chemise. The area about 

 the lakes, however, presents a striking contrast, 

 being thickly wooded -with willow, laurel, buck- 



