70 



THE OOLOGIST 



for the past several years, is very near- 

 ly in the ^center of the seven counties 

 lying south of the Tehichapi Mountains 

 which are known as Southern Californ- 

 ia. It has some frontage on the Pacific 

 Ocean, though no ports or watering 

 places of importance are located on its 

 coast line. Oa its south eastern border 

 hills come down to the sea and thence 

 running north, north west they form a 

 moderately well wooded boundary along 

 its northern line. Otherwise the 

 county is about equally divided between 

 level cultivated lowland and the rolling 

 barley fields of the mesas. 



In the heart of the hills before men- 

 tioned there are numerous large ranch- 

 es within whose bounds the Mexicans, 

 notorious wood theives, have not been 

 permitted to carry on their wood-cut- 

 ting operations. Many sycamores and 

 oaks dot these ranches especially 

 wherever water is to be found in the 

 smaller canyons, and in these the Red- 

 tails find suitable nesting sites. Of 

 course there are other Hawks which 

 breed 'n the same localities, but the 

 Red-tails are the most numerous by 

 about twenty-five to one. It has been 

 my good fortune, ornithologically 

 speaking, to be located in this region 

 for the past three and a half years, but 

 it was not until last year that I thor- 

 oughly "got onto the curves" of the 

 nesting Red-tails, and the result was 

 seventeen sets saved out of about 

 twenty collected. Three of these were 

 of four eggs, six of three, and the re- 

 mainder, eight sets, of two eggs each. 

 I think this porportion will hold good 

 in almost any representative series of 

 sets of Red tailed Hawks collected in 

 Orange county So far this season I 

 have taken three sets of four, four sets 

 of three, and four sets of two which 

 were preserved. One set, taken from 

 an immense nest forty feet up in a 

 sycamore— which, by the way, had no 

 branches for the first thirty feet— and 

 consisting of two eggs was too far gone 



to be saved. This set had evidently 

 consisted when first laid, of three eggs, 

 for about half of the shell of one egg was 

 found clinging to the edge of the nest. 

 Of course they were finely marked. 

 Who ever saw an impossible set which 

 was not beautiful? 



Again, only last Sunday, I climbed 

 over sixty feet to a new nest in an im- 

 mense old sycamore and found one 

 heavily incubated egg. No broken 

 shells were visible nor to all outward 

 appearances, had anyone climbed the 

 tree ahead of me. Last season, this 

 pair laid a nice set of four heavily 

 marked eggs in a nest in another syc- 

 amore not fifty yards from this one. 

 This is not an "ofl"' year, for two pairs 

 of these birds which laid but three eggs 

 each last year, have already presented 

 me with sets of four each and tomor- 

 row I am going to see what they 

 have done in the way of second sets. 



Several pairs of Red-tails are nesting 

 on low cliffs, buildings or ledges or else 

 in crevices of the rocky wall, while I 

 know of one nest, which held three 

 young in May of last year, which was 

 built in a depression in the top of a 

 huge boulder projecting out from from 

 a sloping sidehill. Now and then, 

 though seldom, a nest will be built in 

 a wild walnut growing on the steepest 

 slope of a grassy hill. As these trees are 

 seldom over twenty-five feet in height 

 and correspondingly small of growth, 

 such nests are the collector's delight. 

 The photo presented herewith is from 

 a set of four eggs taken from such a 

 nest situated twenty feet up in a wal- 

 nut on a sidehill. No bird was on the 

 nest and neither one put in an appear- 

 ance until I had climbed to the nest, 

 when both commenced their usual 

 screaming and kept it up until I left 

 the tree. Portions of two lizards and a 

 gopher snake were in the nest as well 

 as remains of a ground squirrel and a 

 kangaroo rat. The whole outfit smelled 

 like a glue factory. One egg is in- 



