160 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



domesticated little creature, as tame as the English 

 sparrow of the East, which is said to be travelling 

 slowly south by train, — a method of travel quite 

 characteristic of this bird. Grinnell records the West- 

 ern wood pewee, the Western savanna sparrow at this 

 island, also the intermediate sparrow. 



On the upper mesas when I rode over the island I 

 saw numbers of streaked horned larks, near great 

 patches of mesembryanthemuni or ice plant; and I at 

 times heard the note of the Western meadow lark and 

 saw them on the summit of the range over Mosquito, 

 on the mesa and near a great cactus patch. This is a 

 most attractive bird; its rolhng ventriloquistic note 

 in one of the delightful features of life in California. 



Every night we saw ravens coming in from the 

 southeast, apparently from the ocean. Where they 

 could have been I do not know, but there were so 

 many, and the points so divergent, that it seemed pos- 

 sible that they went on a day trip to the mainland, 

 forty or fifty miles to the southeast. To this opinion, 

 however, I would not commit myself. I saw them in 

 little valleys on the southwest side of the island, and 

 one day in 1907, Rowland, Pinchot, Potter, and I rode 

 into a little valley where there was a convention of 

 ravens, to the number of several hundred, sitting around. 

 They appeared tame, and rose with reluctance as we 

 approached, bound to the southeast over the long tire- 

 some mountain trails. At Mosquito they were always 

 in evidence, sitting about or flying back and forth 

 along the mountains. A pastime of these birds was 

 to chase the bald eagles, which they often did most 

 effectively until the entire posse would be seen high 

 in air. The raven is a beautiful bird, glossy, almost 



