THE OOLOGIST 



41 



the easiest of access of any place she 

 ever occupied, and on April 14th I 

 took my first set of three. The ledge, 

 or shelf, was about ten or twelve feet 

 long. Starting with a width of a few 

 inches at the outer end it gradually 

 widened to a little over two feet at 

 the inner, where it butted up against 

 the cliff. It was covered with dirt 

 and sand washed down from above 

 but was bare of all vegetation. It had 

 evidently been used many times as a 

 nesting site for there were three 

 saucer-like depressions in the sand, 

 the outer one about five inches wide 

 and an inch deep and the other two 

 slightly deeper. The eggs were in the 

 nearest of the three. This was the 

 only nesting place these birds have 

 been found in where anything ap- 

 proaching a nest or a nesting hollow 

 was in evidence, in all other cases 

 the eggs were laid on the bare ground. 

 The surface of the shelf was well 

 sprinkled with bones and skulls of 

 small mammals and a few small 

 birds skulls. In 1902 there was 

 grass growing on the shelf and the 

 birds went to another site which I 

 did not have time to locate. 



In 1903 they chose another ledge, 

 some 50 feet directly above the first, 

 a similar but wider shelf, wholly bare 

 of sand or dirt but well sprinkled with 

 bones and skulls as evidence of fre- 

 quent occupancy. Although this was 

 taken only five days later in the 

 season than my first set, which were 

 fresh, one of the eggs was far ad- 

 vanced in incubation, the other two 

 being infertile. 



It is not usual to find infertile eggs 

 in the nests of the large raptores and 

 these might be accounted for by the 

 possibility of their having been ex- 

 posed and chilled during a heavy rain 

 before the third egg had been laid. It 

 took 125 feet of rope to reach the 

 ledge. In the inner corner, where it 



joined the rock wall, a large slab of 

 rock stood, nearly vertical in position, 

 having probably slid down from above ; 

 this extended out about four feet on 

 the ledge and to a few inches from 

 the edge, leaving a crevice behind. As 

 I slid down over this I was greeted 

 with a warm welcome, vocal and in- 

 strumental, by a large rattlesnake, 

 that had, the same designs on the 

 ledge, probably, that I had myself and 

 resented my intrusion. I told him to 

 "Shut up" which he (or she) prompt- 

 ly did and crawled in behind the rock, 

 while I sat down in front of it and 

 packed up, with the rattles going all 

 the while like a buzz-saw, and when 

 I climbed over the rock going up he 

 bade me a very vociferous farewell. 

 There are lots of snakes round that 

 ledge but no one would expect to find 

 one over a hundred feet down a cliff- 

 side. What is it that King Solomon 

 said about the ways of a serpent on a 

 rock? 



There is one very good thing about 

 rattlers; they are never looking for 

 trouble. I wasn't myself just then so 

 we parted the best of friends. 



In 1904 my birds went back to the 

 first nesting place where I got a fine 

 set of four. This was nineteen days 

 earlier than the year before. Three 

 eggs far advanced, one infertile. 

 These two places were the only 

 places occupied on the cliff where it 

 was possible to look into the nest from 

 above, which, as may well be believed, 

 is a great convenience. 



In 1905, 1906, 1907, 1909 and 1910 

 eggs were taken from a very well pro- 

 tected, overhung shelf, about 75 feet 

 down, easy of access with a rope and 

 not impossible without, though the ex- 

 treme looseness of the gravelly soil 

 and the almost vertical slope makes 

 it a bit uncertain. 



This shelf was about two feet by 

 three, triangular in shape and bare of 



