198 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XV 
Haematopus ostraleg’us. Oystercatcher. 
The eggs of this species vary in ground color from very light stone grey, 
cream, clay, light buff, medium buff" and dark buff, to a good dark brown, spotted, 
blotched and streaked with blackish brown, occasionally medium brown, and ex- 
ceptionally a very light yellow brown, and always with underlying markings of 
gray. Many eggs are -finely streaked without any spots, while others have 
streaks and blotches combined, and large blotches of gray ; others again have 
medium sized spots evenly distributed. The gray on these eggs is not the usual 
violet gray common to the Limicolae, but a deeper blue-black gray, similar to the 
color left by a blot of ink on white blotting paper. I know of no other eggs of 
the Limicolae that have this same shade of gray. The eggs have little gloss. The 
number of eggs is normally 3 but I have several times found sets of 4, and have 
heard of many others. These eggs vary greatly in size, from 2.55 x 1.75 to 2. to 
X 1.50 inches; average measurements: 2.2 x 1.50. Eggs ovate in shape. 
I have noticed that Ridgway, say in the phalaropes, gives 3 to 4 as the normal 
set of eggs, and also in other species. Surely it is common knowledge that the 
bulk of the Limicolae lay 4 eggs, and it would have been far better to have given 
the names of those species that normally lay less than this number, than to gen- 
eralize as he does in his introduction to the Scolopacidae — eggs 2-4. 
SOME FURTflER NOTES ON SIERRAN FIELD-WORK 
By MILTON S. RAY 
WITH FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS BY 01, UF J. HFINFMANN 
I T WAS on the ninth of June, 1910, that Mr. Henry W. Carriger and the writ- 
er gained the Forni Meadow at the base of Pyramid Peak. Inasmuch as 
Messrs. Barlow and Atkinson, exactly ten years before, investigated the avian 
possibilities of this region, a comparison of the joint findings may prove of inter- 
est. Our predecessors recorded twenty-five species of which we located all but 
three, the Hermit Warbler, Western Warbling Vireo and Pigmy Nuthatch. Car- 
riger and I listed 36 species, and to an earlier summer and ever shifting distri- 
bution during migration, I attribute the cause of this more extended list. 
I'ir. Barlow records two nests of the Mountain Chickadee, one newly built, 
and one with eight fresh eggs. We also found a number of the nests of this 
species, but they all held small young. As Mr. Barlow records his 7 achycineta 
with a ciuestion mark I may state all we noted were T. bicolor. Like Barlow we 
found no Sierra Grouse at Forni’s above 6000 feet, but in similar country, north- 
west of Phillips’ Station on June 12 we encountered a pair at an altitude of 8,500 
feet. 
Mr. Barlow, speaking of the White-crowned Sparrow, says*: “On June 10 
these sparrows were evidently waiting for nest building which was impracticable 
until the bushes should become in leaf.” I may add in this connection that of 
about twenty nests of this bird that I have found at various altitudes in the high 
Sierras three-fourths have been placed on the ground and the balance in the thick 
evergreen lodgepole pine saplings. Of the ground-nests many were not depend- 
ent on foliage for concealment, being hidden by dead branches or concealed at the 
* Condor, II, 1900, p. 107. 
