THE OOLOGIST. 



71 



She tried every wile she knew — 

 broken wing and all — to draw me from 

 her home, but to no avail. 



The eggs were practically fresh and 

 as like the eggs laid by the eastern 

 bird (chordeiles virginianus) as they 

 could possibly have been. This was 

 not the first set of the Texan Night- 

 hawk I had taken, but the others had 

 been found by watching some female 

 that I had disturbed in a broad dry 

 wash near my home. 



On beyond, where the oil desert 

 ceased and the greenery of the hills 

 began, I came upon a nest of An- 

 thony's Towhee, well hidden in a 

 clump of sage brush. It was not more 

 than a foot from the ground to the nest 

 and its four pale blue eggs, lightly 

 lined and dotted with black. I have 

 seen some of these eggs which look- 

 ed very much like the eggs of the 

 Sonoran Red-winged Blackbird, but 

 there was something distinctive about 

 this set — something typical which in- 

 duced me to keep them in my collec- 

 tion — where they are today. 



A pair of Vigors' Wrens were flit- 

 ting about in a tangle of bush on a 

 rocky side hill, but I felt that I was 

 much too early for them, so passed 

 on over the ridge and down into the 

 flat bed of a wide canyon beyond — 

 the Canyon of the Sycamores, as I had 

 named it. Here a little stream- flowed 

 along between the trees, and, as is 

 common in all groves of these trees, 

 the ground was covered with dead 

 leaves. Among these I literally wad- 

 ed, dragging my feet and making a 

 great clatter, like a boy let loose from 

 school, when up rose a quail, a blue 

 blur of light between the tree trunks. 



Down at my very feet — almost step- 

 ped upon, indeed, was a prettily round- 

 ed nest and fourteen eggs of the Cal- 

 ifornia Valley Quail (Lophortyx Cal- 

 ifornica Vallicola). These went into 

 the collecting box, of course, and the 



journey was resumed. For upwards 

 of an hour I traveled on, dog at heel, 

 like Rip Van Winkle, flushing here 

 a towhee, there a woodpecker from 

 some incompleted nest. Twice I 

 climbed to abandoned crows' nests 

 from which I saw telltale ears pro- 

 truding, but in each case, though, the 

 long-ears were at home, there were no 

 eggs. From my collecting experiences 

 among the owls, I am led to believe 

 that there are many barren females 

 or else that the young do not breed 

 until they are two years, or more, old. 

 Some years back, I shot seven of the 

 long-eared variety from one grove of 

 oaks for a Los Angles taxidermist. All 

 were of adult size and plumage, and 

 not one had eggs started. Dissection 

 showed very small ovaries, scarcely 

 half the size of those of a laying fe- 

 male killed from the nest for my own 

 collection a few days before. How- 

 ever, this is a question for wiser men 

 than I to answer; so I pass it by for 

 the more interesting details of the 

 trip. 



Midway down the grove of trees, I 

 came upon a huge dead stub. This 

 tree had once been the home, so I 

 was told by an old herder, of a pair 

 of "Pigeon" Hawks. Knowing his 

 identity to be at fault, I supposed that 

 he had found the home of a pair of 

 Desert Sparrow Hawks, but when I ar- 

 rived at the tree, it was so badly bat- 

 tered by the winds and the rain as 

 to be practically useless for a nesting 

 place ten feet above the ground, only 

 a short splinter rising above that 

 height. Below, however, a smart rap 

 on the trunk with my hatchet brought 

 [ shated Flicker to a fresh-look- 

 ing hole about eight feet up. Another 

 rap sent her flying out, and a young 

 sa; ling, cut to make a rude ladder, en- 

 abled me to get the six fresh eggs 

 the nest contained. 



Below and on the up-hill side < f the 



