Sept., 1904 I 
THE CONDOR 
139 
pleasant and remain quiet at the same time, so I was obliged to engage Mr. Conklin as chief en- 
tertainer, while I worked the machine. The presence of two young rabbits in the nest spoke 
well for the parent owls as providers, and their close scrutiny of all our movements indicated a 
keen interest in the welfare of their offspring. 
We slept that night under the open sky, on a bed of needles of the Torrey pines, and bright 
and early the next day we made our way down to the so-called shack of the Sorrento Fishing 
Club, on the beach just below the cliffs, where we found T. W. Coates, the architect and builder 
of the Club house, fishing in the surf. 
On the return trip we came through the Las Pensequitas ranch where we lunched at the 
spring house and collected two sets of red-tailed hawk’s eggs, from nests about sixty-five feet 
from the ground in sycamore trees. — -F. W. Kel.SEY, San Diego, California. 
Spring Notes From Bay Counties. — While on a ramble in the foothills south of Novato, 
Marin county, on March 31, 1902, two white-tailed kites (Elanus attracted my atten- 
tion by their tireless energy in driving away California crows, which are extremely numerous in 
this section, from a certain oak tree in a grain field. As I approached the spot I perceived in 
another oak nearby what I took to be the-nest. As I ascended the tree the kites began flying in 
an injured manner to draw me awaj'. The nest proved to be but a few twigs and as one of the 
birds flew above the tree with a twig in its beak I concluded the}- were building. On closely ex- 
amining the other oak a nest about the size of a jay’s, caught my eye, thirty-five feet up. Imag- 
ine my surprise when I found it to contain three richly marked eggs of this rare hawk, the first 
to be recorded from the country. The nest, a small, flat, frail structure of twigs and lined with 
grass, measured eight inches over all, the cavity being six and one-half inches across. It is a 
striking contrast to a nest found in June, 1899, near Geyserville, which was as large as a crow's 
nest (cf. Osprey, Volume 4, No, 4). The set was almost fresh and measure as follows, 1.74 by 1.28, 
1.69 by 1. 31, 1.69 by 1.31. While I was in the tree with the nest the kites retired to a dead tree 
some distance away, but on leaving they returned and proceeded to drive the ever-present crows 
away with renewed vigor. On a second visit on April 20 I searched another group of oaks in the 
field, the old nest being empty. While in one of the oaks the kites became very pugnacious, and 
starting from a point twenty yards or so away would sail rapidly in a bee-line towards me swerv- 
ing upward when within a few yards. When I ascended another oak it was a noticeable fact that 
the kites retired to the dead tree as in the fir.st instance. Although no nest could be seen from 
the ground I decided to climb the tree and near the top, forty feet up, I found the nest, similar in 
construction to the first and containing five eggs with incubation just begun. This set gives the 
following measurements, 1.73 by 1.25, 1.68 by 1.26, 1.62 by 1,25, 1.61 by 1.31, 1.61 by 1.27. 
Last year in this region I was rather surprised to find a set of four white eggs, in an old crow’s 
nest in an oak six feet up, on April 6. The nest was lined with feathers, evidently some owl’s, 
and after waiting some hours for the parent Heft, as the eggs were cold. This year, on April 6, I 
found a similar nest thirty-five feet up in an oak with five eggs and the parent proved to be the 
common Nyctalops wilsonianus. On April 20 I found two more eggs in this nest. 
On April 13 I took a trip into the San Mateo county foot-hills. Here I came across a strange 
nest of the western red-tailed hawk {Buteo borealis calurus) in an oak forty feet above the ground. 
It was a long delapidated structure, scarcely wide enough to hold the single egg it contained and 
which was far advanced in incubation. Another nest about two miles distant in an oak only 
twenty-five feet up held two fresh eggs. This female was far more demonstrative than the aver- 
age and with outstretched wings screamed at me from an adjacent oak. — iVIii.TON S. Ray, San 
Francisco, California. 
The Roseate Spoonbill in California — Dr. Gambel states that the roseate spoonbill 
(Ajaja ajaja) occurred on the Californian coast in 1849, though I do not understand that he 
obtained specimens. Nor do I know of the later actual capture of this species in California. 
Mr. R. B. Heron tells me that he saw a roseate spoonbill standing in a pond about four miles 
south of San Bernardino on June 20, 1903. It was feeding in the pond near the road and 
paid no attention as he drove past within gunshot. At first he thought it was a wood ibis 
( Tantalus loculator) but on coming near he saw the pink tinge of the plumage and the spatulate 
bill. On his return the next morning he brought a gun, but the bird was gone. On mentioning 
the matter to Mr. H. E). Wilder he told me that about a year previously (1902) when in Riverside 
he saw a bird fly over that he felt sure was a roseate spoonbill — E'rank Stephens, San Diego, Cal. 
The Snowy Plover. — The following are a few field notes on the nesting of snowy plover 
{yEgiatitis nivosa) as observed in the vicinity of Santa Monica on Ballona Beach during the 
seasons of 1895 to 1901. I find on looking over my field notes of this species that the earliest set 
taken was on May 24, 1899, eggs unincubated, and the latest set July i, 1900, incubation slight. 
