198 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XIV 
notes. One, probably the male's, was a very high pitched staccato affair, and the other 
similar but much lower, softer and more liquid. The soft notes finally started in one place 
about 200 yards away, but for some reason this fact did not dawn on me until it was too 
late to see if a nest might be located by waiting every evening nearer and nearer to the ap- 
parent location. The other bird appeared to roost in one place most of the time, but not 
always, and much farther off. Both were in the heavy timber away from the open stretches. 
High up on the Big Elder Trail, leading from Waldo, Oregon, to Althouse Creek, 
another owl was heard, apparently not a variation of the great horned owl’s call, although 
it must have been a large owl. The notes were "Hoot — hoot-toot — hoo-oo-o-o-o”. The long 
dashes represent pauses of fully two seconds each, the first three notes being very short 
and sharp, while the last was 
prolonged for about a second, 
making each song (?) last 
about five seconds. This was 
the regular call and never 
varied on the two or three occa- 
sions that I passed there at 
night. 
In the dark I traveled by 
feeling the trail with my feet 
in the inky darkness of the big- 
fir timber: it is curious that it 
is possible to walk ciuite fast 
that way, the ground on each 
side of the trail being so much 
softer in the woods and rougher 
in rocky places, that the differ- 
ence is instantly noticeable to 
the feet if the trail is left. 
Several pairs of Heimit 
Thrushes kept the "desolate 
woods” anything but desolate 
around my camp during the 
day, but I have never yet heard 
a Willow Thrush — that is if 
the note is anything like the 
Wilson Thrush. Capen de- 
scribes this as being like the 
sound made when a marble is 
rolled around in a big iron ket- 
tle, which seems to me not a 
bad description, as, although 
the sound varies, it lacks the 
sharp change of other thrush 
notes that I have heard. Her- 
mit and Black-throated Gray 
warblers were also conspicuous 
neighbors around my camp, but 
most of the birds of this 
section prefei more open 
Fig. 81. C. W. BOWI,ES’ CAMP AT KERBY, OREGON, 
jiN SUMMER, SHOWING DETAIEED CONSTRUCTION 
Hummingbirds also nest in the l)ig timber, probably more often than anywhere else, 
judo-ino- from'’the number of males, although I have found only three nests. One was about 
one\undred feet from my tent, forty feet from the ground in one of the largest firs ; it was 
about twenty feet out on a small twig and beneath a large branch. Males killed by a cat 
in Kerby were Rufous, making it probable that the nest near camp belonged to that species 
althouo-li the male was not seen during the whole season. The special attraction of the 
neighborhood to the female was the large pile of ashes left from the brush I had burned. 
Apparently she came at least five times every day throughout the nesting season, as I was 
seldom at camp without at least one visit. On each occasion she would dip down into the 
ashes five or six times and pick up a mouthful, once about six feet from me. Apparently it 
was ashes she wanted and not small specks of charcoal. I was sorely tempted to shoot her 
