AMERIOAN ORNITHOLOGY. 291 



containing the egg. There are few cliffs in southern California con- 

 taining caves such as are found in the northern sierras, and I have 

 heard of an egg of this vulture which was taken from a small hole in 

 the sloping side of one of the low hills known as the Santa Monica 

 mountains in Los Angeles county. The party who found this egg 

 walked to the nest hole ivithout any trouble, the only instance of the kind 

 of which I ever heard and one probably unparalleled since ornitholo- 

 gists have been especially interested in the California birds. The nests 

 which I visited were both in such inaccessible cliffs that at first I des- 

 paired of ever reaching them and in fact, would not have succeeded at 

 all but for the help of the men who went with me and some hundred 

 and fifty feet of good Manila hemp. In general the birds seemed to 

 care little about "the stranger within their gates," and we were in no 

 danger from them, notwithstanding their great size, at any time. Each 

 nest contained one egg and the old tale hereinafter quoted is probably 

 no more reliable than the usual run of bird observations made by the 

 average sightseer. The egg is of the size of a swan's egg, pea-green 

 in color and pitted over the entire surface like the egg of an ostrich. 

 When compared with a turkey "buzzard's" egg it appears much larger 

 though nothing near so large as it has been made out by many news- 

 paper and other stories. It seems about the size of two of the lesser 

 vulture's eggs welded into one and is not nearly so pretty an egg, save 

 .from a commercial standpoint, as that of the latter. 



In Cooper's work on the land birds of California the author quotes 

 Douglas's remarks as given by Audubon as follows: 



"Food, carrion, dead fash or other dead animal matter. In no in- 

 stance will they attack any living animal unless wounded and unable 

 to walk. Their senses of smelling and seeing are very acute. In 

 searching for prey they soar to a very great altitude, and when they 

 discover a wounded deer or other animal they follow its track, and 

 when it sinks precipitately descend on their object. Although only one 

 is seen at first occupying the carcass, few minutes elapse before the 

 prey is surrounded by great numbers, and it is then devoured to a 

 skeleton within an hour, even though it be one of the larger animals, 

 as the elk or horse. Their voracity is almost insatiable and they are 

 extremely ungenerous, suffering no other animal to approach them 

 while feeding. Except after eating, or while protecting their nest, 

 they are so excessively wary that the hunter can scarcely approach 

 suiTficiently near even for buckshot to take effect upon them, the full- 

 ness of their plumage affording them a double chance of escaping un- 

 injured. Their flight is slow, steady and particularly graceful; gliding 

 along with scarcely any apparent motion of the wings, the tips of which 

 are curyed upwards in flying." 



Much of this is of course untrustworthy in the light of later and 

 more accurate observations but it is valuable in the way of showing 

 what was known of one of America's rarest birds in the great natural- 

 ist's time. Further on Dr. Cooper (whose work, by the way, is in- 

 valuable to the California bird student) quotes a Mr. Taylor in Hutch- 



