jy PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA. [No. 4 



variously blotched with blue, may be seen all throug^h the month. The 

 adults renew their plumage entirely at this time, but the juveniles seem 

 to retiin the rectrices and remiges acquired with the first plumage. I left 

 before the moult was completed, but specimens taken in February and 

 March, which I take to be birds of the previous year, have these feathers 

 much more worn and abraded than have the more highly colored, older 

 birds. Two old females taken the middle of August are in the midst of 

 the autumnal moult, covered with pin feathers, and with many old 

 feathers still scattered over the body. 



Corvus corax sinuatus (Wagler). American Raven. 



I have occasionally, but not often, seen large ravens in the higher 

 parts of the mountains, their size, as well as the different note, serving 

 to distinguish them from their smaller white-necked cousins of the 

 plains. Possibly they breed in the mountains, but I know of no instance 

 of a nest being found, or of any other evidence showing that they do so. 



Corvus crytoleucus Couch. White-necked Raven. 



On the plains and in the low lands generally in this region, the 

 White-necked Raven, or "Crow," as it usually called here, is a most 

 abundant resident ; and though not a mountain bird, properly speaking, 

 they frequently come up into the canyons, and on the lower foothills, 

 usually after dead cattle. They are usually quite tame and unsuspicious,, 

 paying little or no attention to a man on horseback or a wagon passing 

 by ; but after being shot at a few times soon become very wary and hard 

 to approach, and as they are usually out on the open prairie it is an easy 

 matter for them to keep out of the way. On one occasion I approached 

 a flock of thirty or forty busily engaged in catching grasshoppers, and as 

 they began to leave long before I arrived within gunshot, I thought to 

 try an experiment ; wondering if an appeal to their curiosity might not 

 be as successful as it usually was with the jays. Tying a stone in the 

 corner of a red bandana handkerchief, I tossed it high into the air, and 

 the result far exceeded my expectations; for though standing in plain 

 sight, they came headlong to see what it was that had fluttered to the 

 ground, and from that time on I had no difficulty in securing White- 

 necked Ravens. When one or more were shot out of a flock the re- 

 mainder did not, fly ofT and alight again, but usually circled about, keep- 

 ing in rather a compact body and ascending higher and higher; not de- 

 scending to the ground for a considerable length of time, and usually a 

 long ways off. On May 3, 1902, I heard a flock of Ravens making a 

 great commotion in the air, and at first supposed them to be mobbing a 

 h^wk, but on their descending nearer to the ground and passing within 

 about a hundred yards of where I was standing, I saw that what I had 

 t-^ken for a hawk was undoubtedly a White-necked Raven, but of a 

 uniform pale brown color throughout. After a time the others appeared 

 to become reconciled to their unique companion, and they all passed 

 amicably away together. In the spring of 1903. I noticed a place on the 

 plains some eight or ten miles from the mountains, where some species 

 of bird w^s evidently roosting in large numbers. The plains are cov- 

 ered with brush at this point, mostly scrubby mesquite, and for a space 

 some two himdred yards long and twenty-five or thirty yards wide the 

 t'-ees were almost destroyed by the use to which they had been put. 

 The ground underneath w^s inches deep with excreta, and the trunks 

 and branches of the trees were white with the same; while they were 

 almost totally denuded of leaves, except at the extreme top where a little 



