398 LIFE HISTOEIES OP l^OETH AMEKICAN BIRDS. 



interior of California tlie Raven destroys many yomig' chickens and turkeys 

 around the ranches. In the spring months I have frequently seen one of these 

 birds flying overhead with a young fowl or an egg in its bill. While making 

 off with one of the latter this is very noticeable, as the egg shows oif so plainly 

 against the shiny black of its plumage. Inland it nests in the highest redwood 

 or fir trees, and nearly always in such as are practically inaccessible to the 

 average collector, and on the seacoast on the face of the highest cliffs, where 

 they prey on the eggs and young of the Gulls and Cormorants nesting- there." 



In the winter it was no unusual sight at Camp Harney, Oregon, to see a 

 ^ozen or more Ravens and perhaps twice as many Crows searching through 

 the fresh piles of manure which were daily carted out of the cavalry stables 

 and dumped some distance below the Post. 



The Raven is usually one of the shyest an^. most suspicious of birds, one of 

 the most difficult to bring to bag, and here only have I been able to approach 

 them at all closely; in other localities where I have observed them they remained 

 very shy and cautious, as is their usual custom. 



Camp Harney is situated on tlie southern slope of the Blue Mountains of 

 Oregon, attaining here a height of between 6,000 and 7,000 feet, the foothills 

 and canyons leading into them abounding in perpendicular cliffs varying from 

 30 to 50 feet in height, and furnishing many excellent nesting sites for these 

 birds, at least six pairs breeding regularly within a radius of 3 miles and perhaps 

 a dozen more within 8 miles of the Post. Notwithstanding their comparative 

 abundance, I rarely managed to obtain more than three full sets of eggs in a 

 season during the four years I was stationed there ; this may have been due to 

 their extraordinary cunning and the irregularity of their nesting, which undoubt- 

 edly in some cases was done purposely. Should a pair of these birds realize 

 that their nest had been discovered, although finished and ready to receive the 

 eggs, they will abandon it, sometimes for several weeks, and apparently leave 

 the locality, only to return and begin housekeeping when presumably all chance 

 of further disturbance has passed. I have lost more than one set of eggs in this 

 way. In one case a pair of these birds, whose nesting' site was in plain view 

 from my window, not over 500 yards distant (the nest itself, however, could not 

 be seen), deceived me so completely that then young were half grown before I 

 even discovered that this particular site was again occupied, the parent birds 

 keeping, so far as noticed, entirely out of siglit during the day, probably feeding 

 the young only early in the morning and possibly during the night, and I only 

 discovered them by accident while passing along near the top of the cliff very 

 early one morning, being attracted by the cawing of the young. 



Out of some twenty nests examined only one was placed in a tree. It was in 

 a good-sized dead willow, 20 feet from the ground, on an island in Sylvies River, 

 Oregon, and easily reached; it contained five fresh eggs on April 13, 1875. The 

 other nests were placed on cliffs, and, with few exceptions, in positions where 

 they were comparatively secure. Usually the nest could not be seen from above, 

 and it g'enerally took several assistants and strong ropes to get near them, and 



