CALIFORNIA GULLS: THE NEGIT ISLAND NESTING 



Paoha Island is also the stronghold of nesting Violet-green Swallows 

 (Tachi/cineta thalassina lepida). While we were too early for eggs, we found the 

 island in a fever of expectancy, with these graceful sylphs scurrying in every 

 direction in search of feathers or other soft building material. The lava chimneys 

 of the usual "devil's post pile" at the northern end of the island afford them un- 

 usual facilities both for sequestration and sociability. 



Most illuminating of all was the presence of White-crowned Sparrows 

 {Zonotrichia teucophri/s) upon this island. At first I did not take them seriously, 

 supposing only that they were loafing about until the snows should relent in 

 their mountain fastnesses. Not even when a bird flushed sharply from a bush at 

 my very feet, did I give the matter more than a passing glance. But when Bobby 

 Canterbury, who is blessed with a more hopeful spirit, flushed a bird under like 

 circumstances, he dug into the bush determinedly and discovered a nest con- 

 taining one egg sunk in the earth under the shelter of a recumbent limb. Think 

 of this typically boreal bird nesting under essentially desert conditions! Under 

 an atriplex bush, of all things! Bobby's find had materialized into a set of three 

 when we were obliged to leave; and I have no reasonable doubt that the entire 

 population of Whitecrowns was engaged in nesting operations at the time of our 

 visit, June 3—6. 



On the 7th of June our party doubled back upon its course, and put in at 

 Mammoth, where we spent an entire month. It had been the writer's intention 

 to report this entire season verbatim et seriatim, but the good fortunes of two 

 succeeding seasons having led our M. C. 0. party into the same section, it seems 

 best to describe the Mammoth country under a separate caption and at a later 

 time. The most significant of this year's experiences, viz., those with the Sierra 

 Nevada Rosy Finch (Leucosticte tephrocotis dawsoni) have been segregated under 

 another heading in this issue of the Journal of the M. C. 0. Suffice to say that 

 we had a month of strenuous and profitable activity at altitudes ranging between 

 8,000 and 12,000 feet, and that we returned home, under protest, thrilled alike 

 with the tingling airs and the oological opportunities of the "high line." 



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