168 
THE CONDOR 
Von. XII 
quality in our birds is ineluctable, even in those who know them best. So much of 
mystery still surrounds many of them, so much of aloofness characterizes the entire 
lives of some of them, that a mere list of their names stirs the blood and teases the 
oblogical imagination. For instance, besides the species alredy mentioned, all 
breeding locally, I heard at this time American Crossbill, Western Evening Gros- 
beak, Cassin Vireo, Anthony Vireo, Western Winter Wren, Chestnut-backt Chick- 
adee, Tawny Creeper, Red-brested Nuthatch, Western Golden-crowned Kinglet, 
Macgillivray Warbler, Olive-sided Flycatcher, and Northwestern Saw-whet Owl. 
(Has any oologist personally collected all of these? J. H. Bowles, working in this 
section for thirteen years, has come the nearest to it, but he is still four numbers shy.) 
At 8 a. m. I shook off the dreamy mood and set out thru a level bit of wood- 
land for the distant Chickadee’s nest. Almost immediately a scrub oak ( Qu evens 
garryanci ) , killed by the shade of the more rapidly growing fir trees, obstructed my 
path with a vision for which I have been toiling for years. A bark scale, sharply 
sprung from the parent stem of the oak tree, here some five inches in diameter, was 
fairly bursting with its oblogical secret. Anchored at the top but free at the bottom, 
its krinkled skirts were not ample enough to conceal the copious twigs with which a 
pair of Tawny Creepers ( Certhia f. occidentalis) had filled its hollow. These twigs 
bristled out in every direction, like a Russian peasant’s whiskers, and challenged the 
offises which I was not slow to fulfill. The nest was barely within reach from the 
ground, and at the first cautious introduction of a finger, the female flitted. I felt 
something soft and downy; I fell back, and, believe me, nearly fainted. Young! 
After all these years! But no; it could not be. It was too absurd! I would try 
again. The soft downy things proved to be catkins bedded in the broad brim of 
the nest (for the nesting cavity must needs be completely filled). The nest proper 
was in the center of the mass, deeply cupt (1% inches deep), and held four eggs, 
well advanced in incubation. The semilune formed by the top of the nest, i. e., 
the shape of the available cavity in cross-section, was five inches from point to 
point, and two and a quarter in thickness, while the depth of the accumulated 
material was ten inches. The birds’ tastes were quite indiscriminate, since the 
inside of the cup alone displays the following materials: cowhair (red and black 
and white), feathers, horsehair, moss, fine bark, macerated weed-stems, chips, fir 
needles, bits of white cloth, ravelings, string, cocoons, spider-egg cases, catkins, 
moth- wings, and vegetable fiber. 
Half an hour was consumed in packing away the nest and eggs. Five minutes 
later an excited Chickadee, a Chestnut-back ( Penthestes rufesceus ) , emerged from 
a tiny hole, “made by one of the Cerambycid beetles”, at a hight of ten feet in an 
old fir stub. The tree had been struck only from force of habit, and no attention 
would have been paid to results, had it not been for the sharp wing-burst of the 
flushing bird. The nest contained six eggs, fresh, as the event proved, but so 
blackened by contact with the mother’s brest as to look quite unpromising. 
Since the advent of the fire-spreading animal, man, the birds have been obliged 
to accept charred stumps as part of the order of nature, and the contact of 
feathers and charcoal cuts no inconsiderable figure in local oology. Fortunatel} r 
the eggs could be waslit, if the bird couldn't. The nest was a simple affair of moss 
and rabbit fur, set in a tapering cavity, with its brim only two inches below the 
entrance. But for all it was so simple, some ten minutes -were spent in digging it 
out, and as many more at the base of the stub where the packing of eggs had to be 
laboriously rearranged. 
My task completed, I rose, stretcht, yawned, — and the old (Trottse's nerves 
gave out. Not ten feet from the stub on which I had been working, a Sooty 
