1 64 



THE MUSEUM. 



'4 



were four eggs in the nest. On the 

 mornings of the 8th and 9th I could 

 not go to the nest but on the loth 

 took the nest and set. The male 

 never scolded until my hand was al- 

 most on the nest, and in fact this bird 

 is usually very quiet when any in- 

 truder is near his home. The female 

 Jay became so tame that she merely 

 slipped off the nest and sat within a 

 few feet of my hand while I took the 

 set. The eggs were fresh, at least 

 incubation was not noticeable and the 

 nest typical of the several other nests 

 found by me this year. The bottom 

 platform or outer nest was composed 

 of coarse twigs, then a nest of root- 

 lets lined with horsehair, resembling 

 on the whole a well-built nest of 

 Minus polyglottus. It was placed 

 three and one-half feet up on a wild 

 walnut limb, the whole overgrown 

 with a dense chilicothe vine. 



Shortly after the discovery of this 

 nest I found another containing three 

 eggs. I left this set and in four days 

 returned for it, but found still only 

 three eggs, one of them "pipped." 

 Needless to add I left the set. This 

 nest was very poor, scarcely more 

 than a platform of coarse twigs plac- 

 ed 8 feet up in a thick clump of pois- 

 oned oaks growing over an alder tree. 

 These eggs were decidedly gray in the 

 ground-color, whereas the first set 

 was of a beautiful green. The mark- 

 ings were also larger and fewer in 

 number in the second set. However, 

 I have often noticed that if from nat- 

 ural causes a set is small in numbers 

 it is usually more strikingly marked 

 and the individual eggs are larger than 

 in normal sets. 



Especially do I remember my third 

 set. One Sunday afternoon in May, 

 the 14th to be exact, a young friend 

 of mine who has a decided leaning 

 toward Botany, came to the house 

 and asked me to take a trip with him 

 over the hills in search of some rare 

 ferns. Away over the "Eternal 

 Hills" we went, now and again flush- 

 ing a Barn Owl from his midday 



snooze in a bushy oak, frightening 

 whole bevies of young Quail from 

 their feednig grounds. Once in a 

 while a Western Red-tail rose, dark 

 against the western sun, with a shrill 

 cry of dissatisfaction and rising high 

 in the blue ether called his mate from 

 her nest in some secluded sycamore. 

 Nature was at her best, nature such 

 as Aububon saw but not such as the 

 average Audubonian sees. But I di- 

 gress. Having filled our boxes with 

 ferns we passed on down a rocky can- 

 yon, leaping from boulder to boulder 

 over the dry bed of the water course 

 — in winter a raging torrent. Cali- 

 fornia Bush Tits, happily unconscious 

 of their unpronounceable Latin name, 

 scolded us roundly from every oak, 

 while from the top of some bush an 

 exuberant Thrasher poured forth his 

 love song to his nesting mate. 



Suddenly rounding a bend in the 

 stream I passed under a "Sumach" 

 bush which overhung the stream. I 

 heard nothing, yet with that intuition 

 born of the woods I turned just in 

 time to see a large blue bird sail slow- 

 ly down into a clump of wild goose- 

 berry bushes. My compaion came up 

 just then and I with his help managed 

 to secure the nest and the four eggs it 

 contained. They were exactly like 

 the first set, being of a greenish-blue 

 ground color speckled and blotched 

 with clove brown. In fact to this en- 

 thusiastic young naturalist, Louis 

 Brockmann, and to his brother Harry, 

 I owe much of my success as a col- 

 lector, and their close methods of ob- 

 servation have taught me many things 

 about the birds. Of this set three 

 eggs were badly incubated and one in- 

 fertile. The nest was composed, as 

 was the first, of three distinct cups; 

 an outer nest of coarse twigs, an inner 

 of fine rootlets and a thick lining of 

 black horsehair. In all cases, and I 

 have found at least six nests this year, 

 black was the color of the horsehair 

 lining. Evidently they know how 

 muce more beautiful those rich green 

 eggs would be against a black back- 



