September, 1902. | 
thp: condor 
1 1 1 
mal matter 11.6%; one stomach collect- 
ed March 16, 1902, vegetable and ani- 
mal matter each 50%; one stomach 
collected April 27, 1902, vegetable 
matter 6% and animal matter 94%. The 
food of the June specimens consisted of 
sm 11 oats, Erodium, grass seeds and 
Hymenoptera. Those taken in Sep- 
tember had a more varied bill of fare, 
consisting of crickets, carabid beetles, 
ants, grasshoppers, Hymenoptera and 
one olive scale, cliickweed. Polygonum, 
Amaranthus, Erodium and oats. Grass- 
hoppers in the animal and wild oats in 
the vegetable food seem to largely pre- 
dominate. One March stomach con- 
tained Hymenoptera and Hemiptera 
and unidentified seeds, while the April 
specimen showed Chrysomelid and 
Lampyrid beetles, Jassids, Arachnids, 
oats and Erodium. 
I believe the rufous-crowned sparrow 
to be resident in this locality, since I 
have collected them in September, No- 
vember and March, and the abundance 
of food and mild winters would seem to 
suggest no necessity for migration. 
Despite the natural secretiveness of the 
species in breeding season I do not con- 
sider it wary at other seasons and its 
acquaintance may be easily cultivated. 
To my fancy the very solitude which 
this bird seeks makes it the more inter- 
esting to the ornithologist and I shall 
look forward to further investigation of 
its sage brush home with renewed 
interest. 
The Redwood Belt of Northwestern California. 
I. FAUNAL PECULIARITIES OF THE REGION. 
BY WALTER K. FISHER. 
T he northw'est coast district of the United States is possessed of a peculiar 
interest ornithologically. It is a region of heavy rainfall and of dark forests, and 
not a few pale interior birds are here presented by more deeply colored races. 
For the student of geographical distribution it has also many attractions because 
such unusual conditions prevail. Combined with a long summer of comparative- 
ly low temperature for the latitude are frequent fogs and not a few rains. Tlie 
proximity to the ocean has much to do with the equable climate, but the summer 
fogs and light rains more than anything perhaps are responsible for the tempera- 
ture, since they greatly reduce the number of sunny days, and thus pull down 
very decidedly the sum total of heat for the season of reproduction To the pe- 
culiar summer fogs and rain are also due the heavy forests and rank vegetation, 
and to both the fogs and forests the dark races of birds. 
Without thinking one is prone to connect the intensity of coloring in the 
birds of this particular region directly with the heavy rainfall, as if the moisture 
itself in some manner acted to produce these deeper tints. In the same way the 
lack of rain in desert regions is sometimes invoked to explain the faded coloration 
of many of the desert-loving species. But, omitting the effect of the different 
rates of abrasion in humid and dry climate, the intersity of color itself seems more 
directly due to the proportion of cloudy days, irrespective of moisture, during the 
season of reproduction. With cloudy days is ranked also the semi-daylight of 
dark forests. Many of the humid belt birds spend their winters in the drier inter- 
ior when the rainfall is heaviest in their breeding areas. They would therefore 
lose in a large degree any ‘benefit’ that the rain itself might confer, granting it pos- 
sessed any sovereign influence. We must remember that the total rainfall of the 
Transition of the central Sierra Nevada exceeds that of Eureka in the so-called 
humid belt. But the rainstorms of the Sierra are very heavy, of short duration. 
