592 HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



dinner of "jerked meat" — that was all. Prof. Holder in his volume en- 

 titled " All About Pasadena," page 124, says : 



"It is of this bird that the rattlesnake corral story is told ; the bird, it 

 is said, building a corral of cactus leaves about the rattler, then awakening 

 him to destruction on the spines. The stor}'- is generally considered a 

 ' ' fable ' ' ; though I have been told it by men who had watched the bird 

 build the corral : and a well-known surveyor in this county states that he 

 has found the corrals, with the skeleton of the snake in the center. There 

 is possibl}^ some mistake in the observations, though the story is not more 

 wonderful than that of the gardener bird, and others, known to be true." 



The Woodpeckers are well represented, there being seven species in 

 this vicinity. The California woodpecker is a black-and-white variety, with 

 a red head and yellow throat. It has a peculiar habit of digging small 

 holes in the bark of oaks. These holes are exactly the size of an acorn. 

 Into each hole the bird forces an acorn, leaving the acute end of the nut 

 protruding. In course of time a small grub finds its way into each acorn, 

 grows and fattens. Then the woodpecker revisits his hoard, pecks into the 

 acorns and extracts the luscious grubs, leaving the empty shells of the nuts 

 still sticking in the holes. The woodpecker often makes use of natural 

 cavities in trees, and in these stuffs great quantities of acorns for the same 

 purpose. 



A little sap-siuker which is often seen in our pepper trees is in the habit 

 of perforating the bark in circles around the tree, thus producing an odd 

 appearance. This is probably for the purpose of extracting the sap on 

 which it feeds. 



NiGHTBiRDS. — The Texas nighthawk is common in suitable localities 

 about here. During the day they doze on the hot sand in the dry arroyos 

 and "washes," but in the evening they may be seen seeking their insect 

 food in the manner of bats and swallows. They have a peculiar trill or 

 thwirr-r-r which is kept up a long time. The eggs are laid on the warm 

 ground without any kind of a nest, and if the eggs are disturbed the birds 

 carry them to another place in their mouths. The young are covered with 

 a grayish-yellow down, which harmonizes well with the color of the sur- 

 rounding earth. If they are endangered by any foe, human or otherwise, 

 the mother tumbles all over herself in her endeavors to attract one's atten- 

 tion from her dear hawklets. The poor-wills are birds peculiar to the west. 

 They are similar to the whip-poor-will of the east in a good many respects, 

 but in a few details of external structure they are distinct. Their call con- 

 sists of two syllables, "poor-will, poor-will, poor-will." The California 

 poor-will frequents the foot-hills and canyon-sides. It is quite common in 

 the hills back of Linda Vista, where they are often observed flitting along 

 in the road or trail in the evening. It is also found on our highest moun- 

 tains. 



Hummingbirds. — They are abundant all the year, about every flower- 



