60 



THEOOLOQIST 



vicinity of Los Angeles. 



The habits of our California Shrike 

 have been a subject of much interest 

 to observers, and it has the same 

 relish for small birds, mice and grass- 

 hoppers and other insects as its east- 

 ern relative. 



It nests in scrubby trees, frequent- 

 ly in rows of trees along the roadside 

 or in a lone tree in a field. I find 

 locusts, oaks and almond trees are the 

 favorites. The construction of the 

 nest is rather bulky and the interior 

 is lined with any soft material, includ- 

 ing feathers, hair, wool, etc. The eggs 

 number five to seven, commonly seven, 

 and are laid during April and the fore- 

 part of May. 



One of my prettiest specimens of 

 nests is one of this bird taken with 

 seven eggs on May 9th, 1919, along 

 the Benicia-Vallejo road. This nest 

 is especially well rounded and softly 

 lined. It was placed eight feet from 

 the ground in a small lone locust tree 

 in full bloom. 



Emerson A. Stoner, 

 Benicia, California. 



Barn Owls at Benicia, Cai. 



In the top of a two-story storehouse, 

 built of stone, and which is used by 

 the government for storage of war 

 materials, I found a pair of Barn Owls 

 nesting during the season of 1919. In 

 the tower, which is flat-topped and 

 reached by three flights of wooden 

 steps which wind around within, was 

 formerly a large clock, but during a 

 fire was burned out and never re- 

 placed. The fire left several cavities 

 through which the birds might enter, 

 and on the wooden fioor which had 

 been rebuilt were deposited five white 

 eggs. These were at the head of the 

 stairs in a corner, without any nest 

 except the remains of birds and mice, 

 bones and feathers and pellets. At 



least two bushels of this refuse wa's 

 littered up in the two corners fur|;h^er- 

 most from the head of the steps. The 

 majority of the feathers were from bi- 

 colored blackbirds. The rump and 

 legs of ^ Rail which had been freshly 

 killed and partly eaten were under a 

 pipe wl^ich ran above the refuse. 



I got two sets from this location dur- 

 ing 1919, one on March 19th, and the 

 other on '\pril 7th. The latter set was 

 placed about ten feet from the first in 

 another corner. Later I was told a 

 third set was laid which was allowed 

 to hatch. 



This season, 1920, all of the open- 

 ings to this nesting site have been 

 closed, and the birds no doubt by this 

 time have found some other situation 

 in which to rear their young. 



Emerson A. Stoner. 



Another Attack 



Thirty years ago today (March 20, 

 1891) from a cavity in a large black 

 oak tree in what was known as the 

 Saltenstahl timber one mile west of 

 Mackinaw, 111., I took a set of five 

 screech owl eggs. About two weeks 

 later I took another set from the 

 same cavity. Both sets are in my col- 

 lection at the present time. 



Today while crossing an old straw 

 stack bottom, I flushed a Killdeer and 

 there lay four slightly incubated eggs. 

 It revived in me a spirit which has 

 lain dormant for the past twenty-five 

 years, and taking the eggs to the 

 house I proceeded to make a drill out 

 of a ten-penny nail, using a straw for 

 a blow pipe. 



It Avas in the days when Charles K. 

 Reed, J. Warren Jacobs, and Frank 

 H. Lattin were making their debut; 

 when Oology and Ornithology appar- 

 ently had more followers than today, 

 that the writer had his "egg-dollecting 

 fever." My collection has been stored 

 away in attics, closets and other dingy 



