1SS7.J Cooper on Bitch of Ventura County, California. 80 



My own additions to the Ventura County avifauna have nearly 

 all been published as from Southern California. Some refer- 

 ences will be given to the various works in which they are men- 

 tioned when not of easy access. 



I collected chiefly near the village of Saticoy, eight miles east 

 of San Buenaventura, and six or seven from the nearest part of 

 the seashore. The Santa Clara River runs half a mile distant, 

 but is dry in summer for seven or eight miles along that part of 

 its course, leaving a wide, sandy and gravelly bed, destitute of 

 vegetation except on a few higher patches where small poplar 

 and willow trees grow, with low shrubbery, and which become 

 islands in the high water of winter. Some sandhills along this 

 portion also sustain thickets of low shrubbery, much like that of 

 the desert regions east of the county. At Saticoy, however, 

 about 30 feet above the river-bed, springs issue from the cdgt of 

 the 'mesa' or terrace for half a mile, constant in summer, and form- 

 ing a considerable marsh, about half of which was then covered 

 by willow groves, thirty or forty feet high, and uniting, the waters 

 form a brook large enough to run a mill at all seasons, discharg- 

 ing within a mile, into the bed of the river. From the river 

 bed the valley slopes gently upward to the hills of the 'Sulphur 

 Range' on the north, rising about 200 feet in three miles, and is 

 naturally prairie land, producing no trees. At that time about a 

 third of the valley was cultivated in grain and young orchards ; 

 but these were still too small to bear fruit or to have any influ- 

 ence on the birds. The hills northward were also grassy, with 

 scattered oaks and other trees in the canons between. The Sati- 

 coy springs furnished the only water in summer, and the only 

 tree shelter for a circuit of three or four miles, the brooks run- 

 ning from the hills drying up nearly to their sources. About 

 three miles east of Saticoy the Santa Clara River runs perma- 

 nently and a grove of poplars and willows lines its marshy shores 

 for several miles. Near this grove was the oldest orchard in the 

 valley, the trees quite large and productive, forming an attrac- 

 tion to many birds that eat the fruit and build in the trees. In 

 my notes on birds I call the orchard and grove referred to East 

 Grove. A water-ditch was dug from the river above this grove, 

 intended to carry water to San Buenaventura, but being too 

 small the water was all used by the time it got a mile or two 

 west of Saticoy, and had little if any effect on the prairie birds' 

 habits. 



