« CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



train, which makes two trips a week through the sheds 

 during the summer, sprinkling the woodwork and tearing 

 down the nests of jays and robins with a hook attached to 

 a pole, seemed not to discourage them. So accustomed do 

 the jays become to the passing of trains, that the}' will 

 often remain on their nests undisturbed. 



In one season more than two hundred nests of ja,js and 

 robins were destroyed, so the train men say, between Cisco 

 and Summit, a distance of thirteen miles. Some of the 

 nests were but partially built, others contained eggs; these 

 latter ones having probably been overlooked on previous 

 trips . 



The nesting of the jays within the snow-sheds is, so Mr. 

 Ingersoll supposes, to avoid the persecution of squirrels. 

 None, he thinks, however, succeed in rearing a brood, for 

 of more than tliirtv nests which he found, nearly all were 

 uncompleted. (A. M. I.) 



Spinus tristis. 



Ameeican Goldfinch. — In 1884, a grove of young willoAvs 

 that had been occupied the previous season by a colony of 

 tricolored blackbirds, was found deserted by them. Manj' 

 of the blackbirds' nests still remained in forks of the wil- 

 lows from four to ten feet above the marsh. Six of these 

 old nests were in possession of American goldfinches. The 

 present tenants had loosely filled the nests about one-half full 

 of cat-tail down, and had formed only a slight hollow for 

 the nest proper. Some were found with eggs, and in others 

 there were "birds in last year's nests." (A. M. I.) 



Melospiza fasciata samuelis. 



Samuel's Song Spaerow. — A nest containing three eggs 

 was found in a round oyster can, which had lodged side- 

 ways among some driftwood in a willow tree. (W. O. E.) 



Pipilo fuscus crissalis. 



Califoenia Towhee. — A pair constructed a nest in a five- 

 gallon kerosene oil-can that lay on its side in a shallow 



