66 
THE CONDOR 
I VOL. V 
great wave of migration was at its height. Tanagers were seen everywhere, and 
noticed by everyone. After May 20 they decreased in numbers, and by May 26 
the last ones had left the valley. The number of these tanagers now breeding in 
our mountains is no larger than usual.” He also says, “the damage done to cher- 
ries in one orchard was so great that the sales of the fruit which was left, did not 
balance the bills paid out for poison and ammunition. The tanagers lay all over 
the orchard, and were, so to speak, ‘corded up’ by hundreds under the trees.” 
It will be seen that the main body of this wave of migration did not reach 
this part of the state till eight days later — May 22 at Haywards. The last ones 
were seen June 4 to 6 at Haywards, while at Pasadena Mr. Gaylord says the last 
ones were seen May 28, eight days earlier than those which were observed here. 
There must have been thousands of tanagers destroyed all through the path of 
their movement along the state, as they worked their way to the breeding grounds. 
What caused these unusually large numbers of tanagers to move so regularly 
through the State, can hardly be known with accuracy. It may have been 
brought about by a late cold wave meeting them on their waj' northward from 
their winter home in Central America, and they may have been impelled to move 
together -in large companies to where food was plenty, and the weather milder. 
On April 15 we had a hard killing frost all through the State, which would, no 
doubt, throw these tanagers together, as it did many other of our spring migrants. 
This fact I noted while in camp at the foot of Mt. Diablo, April ii to 19, 
1896. On one or two mornings large numbers of birds were observed in the can- 
yon, while it was warm and sunny. But as soon as the cold spell set in, all bird 
life seemed to have suddenly disappeared, to appear again several days later. 
This was particularly true of the white-throated swifts and violet-green swallows. 
Three times the birds left the canyon bare of the summer visitors. The last time 
they returned late one afternoon, when, at sundown, the air was alive with swal- 
lows and swifts sailing along the face of the cliffs, or over the tops of the oaks. 
The next morning found the canyon awake with bird life and song, showing that 
the cold wave had passed. 
The Harris Hawk on His Nesting Ground. 
BY FLORENCE MERRI.\M BAILEY. 
F ifteen miles west of corpus Christi, Petranilla Creek throws a belt of rich 
vegetation across the prairie. Its walls are crowned with elms and live oaks 
whose serried branches are hung with waving gray moss, while encircling a 
floor massed with pink primroses grow a mixture of Mexican and United States 
trees and bushes — hackberry, ash, palmetto, all-thorns and cactus. Birds and 
mammals naturally flock here and also show southern admixtures, the clay banks 
of the creek being tracked up by coon, coyote, wild cat, and armadillo, while in 
April and May the trees are alive with such birds as the cuckoo, chat, wren, wood 
pewee, kingbird, cardinal, and a variety of warblers including the blackburnian, 
together with the golden-fronted woodpecker and nonpariel. 
As we were admiring the beauty of the place our attention was attracted by 
the cries of a mockingbird pirouetting around a big Harris hawk {Parabiiieo uni- 
cuictus harrisi) perched on the bare top of a tree in the open. The mocker would 
