52 THE NIDOLOGIST 
Thrasher from its nest, and after chasing it 
through the mesquite for some time (as he sup- 
posed) returned to the nest only to find the old 
bird again on the eggs. 
The Northern Division of the Club meets at 
San Jose, December 7. The Annex held its 
“outing” meeting October 26-27, which was 
largely attended. 
Se oe 
Random Notes on the Birds of 
Alameda County, Cal. 
BY DONALD A. COHEN. 
( Continued.) 
HE Crow is rare and local, but other 
counties adjoining are fullof these black 
pirates. I never saw more than two 
near Alameda (city) ; one was flying overhead 
and cawing, two years ago this winter, and the 
other I shot last summer in a meadow near my 
house. Mr. Taylor informs me of one he saw 
on a lofty tree top taking a view of the town. 
The older inhabitants say that Alameda was 
full of Crows and Indians in the early sixties. 
As the country became more settled the Indians 
moved away for broader hunting grounds, and 
so did the Crows. 
The California Jayis a bully and a thief and 
a great tormentor of cats. He is a high liver, 
often taking eggs and young birds for his din- 
ner, but his humbler fare consists of insects and 
fruit and acorns. Owing to their mean traits 
I always shoot them on sight, but allowed a pair 
to raise a brood in my yard last summer so I 
could study their habits by watching them from 
my window. The male would carry choice 
morsels of food to his mate, such as grubs and 
cutworms, and they certainly do considerable 
good in ridding the land of them, but their bad 
qualities are far greater than their good ones. 
His depredations on chickens’ and turkeys’ 
nests are alarming, and I have seen him even 
in the poultry house in search of eggs. I tried 
putting a pinch of strychnine into eggs he had 
partly eaten, and always found a dead Jay with- 
in fifty feet the next day. I once shot one that 
had killed a young chicken larger than himself, 
and he was calmly making a meal on its brains. 
I witnessed a battle between one of these mur- 
derers and ahen turkey. The Jay attempted 
to take one of the little turkeys for a meal, 
and each time he swooped down he found the 
mother on guard, and with all his strategy found 
her more than a match for him. Quails’ eggs 
are a luxury to him, and it takes a whole nest- 
ful to appease his voracious appetite. He is 
the curse of the sportsman in quest of game, 
for when he sees him coming he leaves his 
watchtower and flies across the canyon utter- 
ing his harsh, loud “chee-chee-chee” to warn 
everything that has ears that man, its enemy, is 
on the trail. I have often seen a few of these 
ruffians hold a small Hawk at bay or flush an 
Owl from his roost in the thick foliage, and keep 
up a loud screeching that attracted more and 
more of their clansmen. Last fall I was at- 
tracted to a large oak by their clamor, where I 
found them bullying a Lewis’ Woodpecker. I 
turned the odds by blazing into them and kill- 
ing four and scattering the others. They lack 
crests and are deep blue with grayish under- 
parts. I have taken over one hundred nests, 
all in oaks except one, which was in a cypress 
tree. The nests are in thick-foliaged, medium- 
sized oaks, and from ten to twenty feet from 
the ground. With the exception of the one in 
the cypress tree, which was built of dead twigs 
of the tree and heavy stems of weeds, all the 
others were composed of dead twigs of the live 
oak and lined with coarse rootlets, and lastly 
with finer ones and soaproot fibers and hair 
from the tails and manes of horses and cattle. 
The twigs forming the foundation fall apart 
when the nest is lifted. Their eggs vary in 
color, shape, and size, and I have found sets 
with a reddish tinge, and have seen others col- 
lected here that look entirely unlike eggs of this 
bird. I do not see this mentioned in any books 
on the subject of eggs. There are about four 
sets of reddish eggs now in Alameda among 
members of the Cooper Ornithological Club, 
and I hope some time to give the coloring more 
fully and the measurements. 
(Zo be continued.) 
———+-0+—___ 
Birds Attracted by a Fire. 
URING the conflagration on the night of Octo- 
ber 21 and 22 in this city, a number of flocks 
of Ducks (Sp. ?), American Golden Plover, 
and Greater Yellow-legs were seen circling over the 
town. They seemed to be dazed as they flew about 
uttering their plaintive cries. 
It was a cloudy night, and the reflection on the 
clouds and the flocks of birds sailing overhead made 
it a wonderful and beautiful sight in spite of the great 
calamity. 
It was thought by some at first that the Ducks were 
on fire, so bright was the light and the clouds so dark 
far above. 
The season of 1895 was a very dry one on this 
prairie and shore birds were rare, only occurring near 
the larger bodies of water. I have not observed a 
single 7véanus since early in the spring. The nearest 
locality where there is any water is Lacqui Park Lake, 
a distance of fifteen miles, from where the flocks of 
Yellow-legs must have been attracted on the night of 
the fire. ALBERT LANo. 
Madison, Minn. 
> a nae 
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