II4 
occasional specimens being spotted 
lightly. I must also mention that the 
Mountain Chickadee is possessed of a 
soft and very musical song, although it 
does not seem to be uttered nearly so 
frequently as the common-place chick-a 
dee-dee. This song consists of four 
notes, two being given in the same high 
key while the last two drop perhaps 
half way down the scale. To my no- 
tion it is very similar to the song of the 
Golden-crowned Sparrow, but judging 
from the recent discussion of the latter’s 
song in this journal, I fear that many 
Californians will have to observe Zono- 
trichia coronata closely before they can 
appreciate my comparison of songs. 
w w 
Alma’s Thrush in Colorado. 
M r. harry c. oberholser 
in the Aiik Oct. 1898 describes 
this’new thrush and says: Mon- 
tana, Colorado and Texas have both 
swainsoni and almce during migration. 
He gives lists of specimens from Colo- 
rado as follows; Clear Creek, Twin 
Lakes, Denver nd Colorado Springs. 
I collected a male Maj^ 20th, 1900. It 
was in company with several others in 
a clump of cottonwoods along a small 
branch of the Poudre River inside the 
city limits of Fort Collins. The day 
was cloudy with a tine drizzling rain 
that had set in the night before making 
everything dripping wet but that did 
not dampen their spirits as they were 
singing as only a thrush - can sing. 
They were very shy keeping among the 
leaves in the topmost branches, and it 
was with difficulty I secured one. 
Dr. A. K. Fisher kindly identified it for 
me. 
Prof. Cooke’s list and first appendix 
to same were published before Mr. Ober- 
holser described it, but in his second 
appendix published May 1900, by 
some oversight he omitted it. 
William L. Burnett. 
Fort Collins, Colo. 
1 Vol. Ill 
Eggs Erom American Barn Owls in Cap- 
tivity. 
A t the Northern .Division meet- 
ing in Alameda May 7, 1898 a 
paper entitled “The American 
Barn Owl in Captivity’’ by myself was 
read, describing a brood of downy 
owlets recently taken, and their habits 
in confinement. As a sequel I will fur- 
nish a few other notes concerning the 
later life of the three survivors. After 
their plumage was well formed I decid- 
ed that the box in which they were 
raised was too small for them, so fenced 
off a space under a pigeon house, whose 
floor was six feet from the ground. A 
shed and fence on two sides of the cage, 
which was about ten feet square, shut 
out considerable light. The floor was 
dry and sand}' and two nail kegs were 
nailed up close to the roof and slanted 
downward toward the bottom. 
Then I had considerable difficulty in 
transferring the owlets into a sack. 
They fought viciously at my gloved 
hand with beaks and talons. If they 
had been handled daily from infancy I 
doubt if their wildness or ferocity could 
have been overcome, except to that cer- 
tain degree which is influenced by 
hunger and habit of forced observation 
on the attendant’s movements. When 
first liberated in this enclosure they flop- 
ped about wildly, hissing in evident ter- 
ror, and finally flopped into one of the 
nail kegs. After this the}' were not in- 
truded upon for some days but always 
made a physical commotion, beating 
about the cage, at my entrance. 
During the day they remained quiet 
but at dusk began their hisses. This 
hiss of voluntary origin was unlike the 
hiss caused by their defensive attitude, 
both in sound and intervals of frequency. 
A pail of water was set into the enclos- 
ure but I could not determine that they 
had much use for it either as a bever- 
age or an ablution. 
No live rodents were ever served 
with their menu, because there were 
very few about the yard at this time. 
THE CONDOR 
