July, 1910 
NOTES ON THE RUFOUS-CROWNED SPARROW 
125 
or done any other foolish stunts. Dreams of skunks and other “varmints” following 
Taggart’s tracks and eating the eggs filled my head that night; but all eventually 
turned out well, and to make a long story short, I got the female bird, nest and 
eggs, and Emerson took photographs of the whole outfit. The bird was seen 
leaving the nest, and was collected right then. 
The nest was a poor affair — simply a few dry grasses were arranged on one side 
and part of the bottom of an irregular hole on the edge of a bank along the side of a 
small gully. The eggs rested upon the earth with a few grasses crost between, and 
a small sage sheltered the nest from the sun. 
The lateness of the date, July 8, 1908, angered well for incubated eggs, but we 
were glad to find these perfectly fresh. They were three in number, glossy white with 
no trace of the bluish color spoken of by some writers, tho slightly pink before 
blowing. The eggs are now in the writer’s collection, and are prized the most of 
all the shells to be found there. 
THE ANNA HUMMINGBIRD 
By J. H. BOWLES 
N UMBER one Oil my list of “birds seen at Santa Barbara” is the Anna Hum- 
mingbird ( Ca/yptc anna ) , a splendid male noted on November 17, 1909. 
Accustomed as I was to the much smaller hummers of the north, and to the 
Ruby-throated Hummingbird of the New England states, this large and handsome 
species became at once of the greatest interest to me and I determined to make an 
especial study of it. 
Altho most numerous during the winter months, the Anna Hummers are very 
plentiful at all seasons, being the commonest member of their family in this portion 
of southern California. A friend who has a large flowering shrub on his estate as- 
sured me that he had seen more than forty of these hummers feeding at one time 
among its blossoms, and indeed in many such localities one might shut his eyes 
and believe himself to be surrounded by a swarm of giant bees. 
All hummingbirds seem possest with the most irascible dispositions, and Anna 
is very far from being an exception to the rule. The females are, if possible, more 
pugnacious than the males, and nothing seems to give them greater pleasure than 
to pick a quarrel with some other bird, preferably of their own kind, altho anything 
with two wings is acceptable. It is a most amusing experience to sit near the nest 
of some such bird as the Parkman Wren, whose loud complaints at your intrusion 
have attracted numerous of her sympathetic avian neighbors. Presently an Anna 
will whiz upon the scene and at once start in on a systematic campain against 
every bird in the immediate vicinity. 
On one occasion I notist a female making repeated dives into the center of a 
large wild rose bush, and an examination showed a four-foot corral snake to be the 
cause. Upon killing the snake I found him to have been gilty of nothing more 
reprehensible than eating a lizard, so throwing him on the ground I moved a short 
distance away to see what the hummer would do. She had been watching from the 
top of a neighboring live oak, and almost immediately darted down and hovered 
over her enemy, gradually dropping closer until she was within a foot of him. 
Her head was bent far down and here extreme caution, in markt contrast to the 
rough and tumble tactics usually employed, showed how fully she appreciated her 
