Nov., 1910 
THE BREWER SPARROW IN FRESNO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 
195 
large numbers of rose beetles were eaten; but without examining the stomach con- 
tents of a specimen I could never be positive on this point. 
There is only one other place in this part of the State where I have ever found 
the Brewer Sparrow. Across the San Joaquin River in Madera County, just where 
the first scattering oaks begin in the foothills, are a number of low, hot, uninviting 
ridges, having an elevation of perhaps eight hundred feet. Devoid of vegetation 
except on the very summits where half a dozen large clumps of ragged sage bushes 
have found a foothold, these hills seemed too desolate to be a suitable home for 
any bird; yet on April 13 of the present year these bushes seemed alive with spar- 
rows, if their songs were any indication. The number of birds that really con- 
stituted this colony was not easily determined as they were seldom induced to leave 
cover and their plumage seemed to blend with the soft gray-green of the 
surroundings. 
Half a mile below, a creek wound lazily out of the hills to be lost in a series of 
mud holes a few miles out on the plains. Along this stream’s course a number of 
large cottonwoods seemed to be tempting the ornithologist to enjoy their shade. 
Cool and inviting they extended farther and farther, at last seemingly merging into 
the blue haze of the mountains beyond. The sparrows were left to enjoy their 
torrid surroundings while the writer satisfied his desire for knowledge by hunting 
for nests of the California Ja\^ in the bushy willows along Cottonwood Creek. 
BIRD NOTES FROM SOUTHWESTERN MONTANA 
By ARETAS A. .SAUNDERS 
WITH EIGHT PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR 
D URING the spring and summer of 1910 my work kept me in camp in vari- 
ous parts of Silver Bow, Jefferson, and Powell counties, Montana. The 
nesting season, in the mountains, hardly begins before the first of June, and, 
with the exception of two nests of the Clarke Nutcracker, I found no nests earlier 
than this. 
The Nutcrackers ( Nucifraga Columbiana) , however, w r ere early enuf to suit 
anyone. With the first warm days in March, just after the Mountain Bluebirds 
had returned and when flocks of Shufeldt and Montana J uncos were beginning to 
throng the thickets, the Nutcrackers appeared to be choosing mates and hunting 
nesting sites. This bird is most abundant in this region at high elevations, in the 
white-bark pine forest, close to timberline, but it is not uncommon at much lower 
elevations, often as low as 5,000 feet, in scattered stands of Douglas fir. As these 
latter places are much more accessible at this season, it was here that I began my 
search for nests. For a time I found nothing, but finally on March 14, I notist a 
large bulky nest, not high up in a fir on the rocky hillside where I had been look- 
ing, but barely six feet from the ground in a little, thick, bushy spruce, growing 
in the creek bottom. An examination showed this to be a new, practically finisht 
but empty nest, and evidently that of a Nutcracker tho no birds were in sight. 
On March 18 I visited the nest again. As soon as I touclit the spruce a Nut- 
cracker flew off, and I found that the first egg had been laid, evidently that morning. 
For the next three days I past the nest frequently and found the bird always sit- 
ting and a new egg each morning. In my experience most birds do not begin sit- 
