THE OOLOGIST. 



87 



climb to each suspected nest, not know- 

 ing the precise site; and guided by my 

 experience with Bubo in Illinois, where 

 sycamores grow tall and Bubos nest 

 high, I ascended to several that were 

 conspicuously high. At length, having 

 examined all the likely sites, I conclud- 

 ed that the occupied nest must be an 

 insignificant affair in the top of a slen- 

 der tree. Pushing through the thicket 

 to reach the tree, I discovered a large, 

 lean-to nest against the trunk of a 

 small tree, the distance of the structure 

 from the ground being only ten feet. 

 Think of that, Dr. Strode, only ten 

 feet. Little thinking that B. v. sub- 

 arcticus was living so far beneath his 

 privilege, I scrambled up the trunk 

 from sheer force of habit, and ah, there 

 were two eggs, generously blotched 

 with blood as though produced through 

 sore affliction, lying lonesomely in a 

 cavity ten inches across and two inches 

 deep. Incubation advanced to blood 

 and matter, as I wrote in the data. 

 And thus my Owl dream partially came 

 true. 



P. M. SiLLOWAY, 



Lewistown, Montana. 



The Turkey Vulture. 



Cathartes Aura. 



Throughout southern California, 

 from the booming surf of the hoary 

 old Pacific to the snow capped summits 

 of the Sierras, the Turkey Vulture, or 

 "Buzzard" as he is commonly called, 

 is by far the most abundant raptorial 

 bird. Hawks, mostly of the Red-tailed 

 and Red-billed varieties are common 

 residents of certain limited districts 

 but these vultures are well nigh univer- 

 sal, in fact, so plentiful are they that 

 one who has lived in this Golden state 

 for any length of time, notes their ab- 

 sence from landscape to a greater de- 

 gree than he does their presence in it. 



In spring and early summer the big 

 dark colored fellows are found most 



abundantly back in the higher hills but 

 as soon as the young are fully fledged, 

 they begin to scatter out over the low- 

 lands where the food their manner of 

 life demands is more easily obtainable 

 than along the sterile hillsides. This 

 family exodus takes place about the 

 end of August, but the huge California 

 Condors, who occasionally frequent the 

 same hills with their lesser relatives, 

 do not join in this local migration, 

 preferring to take their chances in their 

 native hills. These huge scavengers, 

 however, do not nest with us, if so my 

 knowledge on the subject is at present 

 quite limited, as the Turkey Vulture do. 



In this immediate vicinity, and, I 

 may say, throughout the northern part 

 of this county (Orange), their eggs may 

 be looked for from April 1st to May 1st. 

 Before this date sets are seldom com- 

 plete and afterwards my experience has 

 been that most eggs are "past redemp- 

 tion" even by such all powerful means 

 as caustic potash. I adaiit, on the 

 other hand, that full sets of the eggs of 

 this vulture have been found near here 

 earlier than April 1st, and on the 10th 

 day of March of this year while out on 

 the trail of a pair of Pacific Horned 

 Owls, I found two fuzzy young "buz- 

 zards" under a shelving ledge of rock 

 on a barren hillside, and I have read of 

 fresh sets which have been taken a few 

 miles southeast of this place during the 

 last ten days of May. 



Notwithstanding the many floating 

 rumors which have come to me of 

 "buzzards" that built huge nests in 

 trees. I have never yet succeeded in 

 finding the Turkey Vulture nesting 

 anywhere save in the ground, and then 

 always in little caves, never "among 

 the brush on a sidehill" as I have read 

 of other collector's doing. Nor do 

 they nest in hollow trees, a trait com- 

 mon to them in Texas and other Gulf 

 states. This is not from any lack of 

 dead trees for every fool camper who 

 passes through our canyons must of 



