May. 1903 I 
THE CONDOR 
65 
ing here (May 17), that dozens on dozens of the birds were lying about. For the 
first two weeks the birds so found were mostly males, but later on the greater 
numbers were composed of females and young of the year, in gray and light olive 
green plumage. 
On the 22nd of May, in driving through the canyon, some nine mile to the 
other side of the range of hills between Haywards and the Livermore Valley, I 
found the tanagers .scattered through the black oaks. They were moving east- 
ward, more notably in the morning. In the middle of the day they kept to the 
cool thick foliage. 
In the orchard from fifty to sixt}^ shots a day were used, but they seemed to 
make no decrease in the number of tanagers that came every day to feed on the 
ripening cherries. Tanagers lay about everywhere, and no doubt many must have 
flown off to die in the bushes or on the hill sides. The neighboring cats soon 
found out the feast, and every night would come to have their fill of the gay col- 
ored birds. In counting up 
the two weeks’ continual 
shooting of say three dozen 
birds a day, at the least, of 
forty to fifty shells used, we 
have a total of over 600 birds 
killed, and it may have run 
up to a thousand, as the 
neighboring boys came in 
with their guns to have a shot 
at them also, for fear the birds 
might come to their orchards 
next. 
I noticed one fact of the re- 
striction of the tanagers to 
the orchards along the hill 
edges. None were found, so 
to speak, in the larger or- 
- 1,1 CASSIN VtREO. 
chards about the town 
of Haywards. I found them only for a few days in my own orchard, that is to say 
from the 26th of May to June 4th. After shooting at them once or twice, they 
became very shy, flying to the tall trees along the creek as soon as any person 
was seen. 
At this time large flocks of waxwings, or cedar birds, were about the orchard 
trees, but I found that they did no damage to the fruit (as they are known to do 
in the eastern orchards). Mr. R. H. Beck notes tanagers all through the Calaveras 
Valley to the San Joaquin Valley up the mountains to Lake Tahoe of the Sierras. 
Mr. H. Reading tells me he met with them all through the mountains about 
the vicinity of Mono, Elnora and others of the high Sierra lakes. From 
my records for Haywards, for the last fifteen years, I have only noted 
them twice: a female shot May 28, 1880, and a female seen May 21, 1883. 
Mr. W. E. Bryant mentions them as not a common bird about the Oakland 
hills. Mr. H. A. Gaylord of Pasadena, Cal., in a letter under date of June 16, 
1896, states that “they were seen singly from April 23 to May i. From this date 
up to May 5 their numbers were greatly increased, and by May 5 there was an 
unusually large number of them. Then for about ten days, until May 16, the 
