154 



THE OOLOGIST 



349«/ 2 

 The above mysterious figures being 

 the entire contents of a telegram 

 which was handed to the editor's wife 

 in the U. S. Grant Hotel, San Diego, 

 Calif., March 24, 1912 produced the 

 results which is usual when a woman 

 receive a telegram. Immediately- 

 strange and unusual misgivings and 

 dismal forebodings took possession of 

 the recipient, and were communicated 

 to the best Mother in the world who 

 was present. For about two hours, 

 during the absence of the editor and 

 while he was enjoying a most delight- 

 ful visit with A. M. Ingersoll in in- 

 specting his unusual and splendid col- 

 lection of eggs, these two ladies paced 

 back and forth in our apartment in the 

 hotel, imagining everything that the 

 mind of woman could conjure up in 

 the way of misfortune which had or 

 was likely to be visited upon a mem- 

 ber of human race. 



Ye editor arrived about 4 p. m. and 

 immediately the mysterious message 

 was placed in his hands while two 

 very muchly agitated ladies stood ex- 

 citedly to one side awaiting the de- 

 nouement. A hasty glance at the mes- 

 sage resulted in an announcement im- 

 mediately to the ladies that we would 

 leave San Diego tomorrow morning at 

 the earliest possible moment. While 

 the editor is a lawyer by profession, 

 he would disclaim the ability to frame 

 up as many question in the same 

 length of time as those with which he 

 was plied during the next few 

 minutes. It had been our intention to 

 remain in San Diego several days and 

 the hurried departure as the result of 

 the mysterious message completely 

 upset both mother and wife, though 

 they were repeatedly assured that 

 there was no immediate danger of 

 assassin, arrest, or bankruptcy. 



The next morning our machine 

 headed north and travelled nearly all 



forenoon over the rocky, mountainous, 

 beautiful California landscape, at 

 times a perfect desert and again a 

 splendid agricultural section, followed 

 by range upon range of mountains al- 

 most as far as the eye could reach, 

 like huge frozen billows of ocean. Ar- 

 riving at Escondido, we looked up the 

 sender of this mysterious telegram, 

 whom the editor had met and spent a 

 most delightful time with a few days 

 before as we drove south from Los 

 Angeles through Escondido. The re- 

 sult of this meeting was that im- 

 mediately after dinner our auto con- 

 taining the editor, his wife and a num- 

 ber of the best know Oologists of Es- 

 condido, headed west out of the city 

 where we entered "Spook Canyon," 

 which is a great rift in the range of 

 mountains, bordering the Pacific and 

 extending from the ocean, clear 

 through the range to Escondido. It is 

 a wild, rugged, rocky, well-named 

 cleft, at places widening out to a con- 

 siderable width and in other places 

 the sheer walls of rock rise hundreds 

 and hundreds of feet. The sides are 

 brush covered and in many places are 

 huge trees and magnificent live oaks 

 and there is very little habitation in 

 this mountainous valley. A beautiful 

 stream winds and crooks and tumbles 

 and runs along the bottom, finding at 

 last the sea. As we followed the 

 mountain road down this canyon we 

 were compelled many times to ford 

 this creek in -first one place, and then 

 in another, and on the way down were 

 shown several nesting cites of the 

 Golden Eagle which had been used in 

 times gone by. Finally arriving 

 amidst a little grove, in the bottom off 

 the canyon, the car was stopped and 

 the party alighted and struck off afoot 

 toward the object of the expedition. 

 Finally Mrs. Barnes seated herself on 

 a large boulder and was left with the 

 field glasses to observe the further ad- 



