186



F. E. Blaamv—About Birds in North America



long and of enormous size (13-18 inches long). There were also close

by beautiful examples of Pinus ponderosa, the finest one standing near

the pigsties. This noble tree had been used as a stile to fasten a gate

to, and for that purpose had simply been cut flat on one side ! ! What¬

ever I admire in America it is not the way that some of the Americans

treat their trees ! After my trip in the Sierra Nevada., I went back to

San Francisco, and then went north to Eureka in the Humboldt Basin ,

to see the redwoods on the Eel River.


East, in Washington City, I had been told that I would find redwood

forests ( Sequoya sempervirens) near San Francisco. It took, however,

over 12 hours by rail to get to Eureka, and from there three or four

hours by auto to get to really good forests of redwoods on the Eel river.

In Eureka one of the roads was full of tall grasses that bore seed. In

it, feeding on the grass seed, were flocks of Siskins, old birds with families

of young ones. The old males were yellowish green with a black cap.

In the redwood forest the first bird I saw was a Steller’s Jay that

hopped fearlessly around us.


These woods, which showed a wealth of splendid ferns, and in which

a specimen of redwood was shown me that had 21 feet diameter,

the birds were unfortunately extremely scarce, and I only noted there

a Blackish Wren and small Grey Plovers along the river side, whilst

a bird of prey, apparently a Pandion, hovered over it at some distance.


A family of ducks, following the course of the river, flew at too

great a distance to be identified.


From Eureka I went back to San Francisco, and then travelled north

by railroad to Seattle. This takes about two days and two nights, and

on the way one has a fine view of Mount Shasta, which is, I believe,

14,000 feet high and has snow on it. Seattle has a fine situation on

Pucjett Sound, and one of the commonest birds there is Turdus

migratorius, which even in the vegetable market hopped fearlessly

amongst the visitors.


In Woodland Park is a small zoological collection, fine Bison and

Wapiti being of course included. In the woods I noticed small birds

of the Jackdaw family. They looked much like a Jackdaw, but were

slightly more elongated, and had no grey neck feathers. The voice,

however, resembled closely that of our Jackdaw.



