144 
THE CONDOR 
| Von. VIII 
is almost always in a natural cavity of an oak or fir stub, tho an unusually large 
hole made by a flicker is sometimes used. It is seldom at any great height from 
the ground, usually, from ten to fifteen feet, and is generally only six or eight 
inches deep. An exception to this was in an oak stub where the entrance was 
only four feet up, the bottom of the cavity being but three inches above the level 
of the ground. No nesting material or lining of any kind is used, the eggs being 
deposited on the decayed wood at the bottom of the hole. 
The eggs are laid from the first to the second week in April, and are from two 
to four in number, four being most commonly found. They are pure white in 
color, a globular oval in shape, with a smooth, finely granulated and somewdiat 
glossy shell. In size they seem exceedingly large for the size of the bird, altho 
this is one of our largest screech owls. An average egg is as large as an average 
egg of the long-eared owl, tho the latter is, of course, a much larger bird. The largest 
egg in my collection measures 1.65x1.40 inches, the smallest 1.48x1.27 inches, an 
average egg measuring 1.59x1.35 inches. 
After the young are partly grown it is most unusual to find either parent on 
the nest, which makes it seem very possible that the old birds spend most of the 
day hunting for food. This I know to be the case with the horned owls of eastern 
Washington. 
The voting are generally quite lively when taken from the nest, and sometimes 
very much on the defensive. Daylight does not seem to bother them in the least, 
for they stare at the intruder in a most uncompromising manner. 
The nesting cavity and the ground around it are kept scrupulously clean from 
first to last, and only rarely an occasional tell-tale bit of down at the entrance dis- 
closes the secret to the bird student. 
In Massachusetts the male screech owl almost invariably has a roosting hole 
for himself not far from the nest occupied by the female. With our northwestern 
sub-species it is extremely doubtful if this ever occurs; at least my nine years’ ex- 
perience in Washington have shown no evidence to that effect. 
Tti coma, Washington . 
Nesting of the Red-bellied Hawk 
BY C. S. SHARP 
T HIS west-central part of San Diego county is especially favored by the pres- 
ence of the red-bellied hawk (Bu/eo li neat us elegans ) . The birds are not 
commonly seen near the coast, but in the interior valleys, where the river 
bottoms are more or less thickly lined with trees and scattering groves, we find 
them following the rivers up to about the base of the coast range. 
In these localities the species is a fairly common resident, seldom appearing in 
the higher enclosed valleys or in the mountainous regions, and their hunting range 
lies along the rivers and the adjoining fields and low-lying hills. 
The highest elevation at which I have found them is about 1350 feet, where a 
pair have for many years inhabited an oak grove on the edge of an open mesa. 
This is at the head of a steep ravine which runs up for a couple of miles from the 
river some 900 feet below. Both elevation and location, being so far away from 
the river bottom, are unusual. 
They do not appear to be an open country bird like the red-tail but seem to 
