i jo a jam 
770 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
a great uproar. I shouted to my friend who 
called to me to come to him. His tent was 
down and after we had straightened it up we 
found his camp bed was broken in two. He ex¬ 
plained to me that in the middle of the night 
he had awakened and heard Vixen barking and 
had stepped out of the tent to see what was 
wrong. He had gone about three yards when 
he heard something coming like a steam engine. 
It was too dark to see, but it turned out to be 
the rhino charging his tent and during the on¬ 
slaught the brute must have put one of its feet 
on the bed. If P. had happened to be in it at 
.the time it would have been a bad case for him, 
as the weight would have crushed him and at 
any rate it would have meant broken limbs. 
Rhinos are so pugnacious that the moment 
they wind you you are in for it, and down they 
come full charge, and seldom it is that they will 
give you right of way. It does not signify 
whether your caravan is large or small, wagons 
or not; if they can, they are going to hurt 
something. The largest number I have ever seen 
together was eight and I assure you I gave them 
a wide berth. The natives say that if you 
whistle to a rhino he will stop. I have heard 
other white people say the same thing, but I 
must candidly confess I never waited long 
enough to try the experiment. 
A young surveyor was working at a place 
called Fort Hall not very far from Nairobi. 
He had been warned that it was not safe to go 
about without a rifle, but like some of our ten¬ 
derfoot friends he thought the boys were try¬ 
ing to make fun of him, and took no notice and 
no rifle. The result was disastrous. A rhino 
winded him while he was working and charged, 
and before he could get out of its way the rhino 
was on him and flung him about twenty yards, 
and the first horn, which is generally the long 
one, went right through his thigh. Before help 
could be obtained he died from exhaustion and 
[Nov. 13 , 1909- 
loss of blood, but the doctor afterward said that 
the wound would have been fatal in any 
event. 
This is a story that is scarcely credible, but 
natives swear it is true. A crocodile has been 
known to pull a rhinoceros into water and drown 
him. We all know they can do this with an 
ox, but a rhino is so strong and of such an 
immense size that it is hard to believe the 
tale. 
I suppose that many young sportsmen will soon 
be following the example of Colonel Roosevelt, 
who is now in British East Africa. I offer them 
one bit of advice which I hope they will excuse 
me for venturing. I have shot all over Africa 
for the last ten years and know the conditions 
there and so the suggestion may be pardoned. 
Never on any account or for any reason leave 
your camp without your rifle. You never know 
what may turn up and it; is always the unex¬ 
pected that happens. 
An Ornithologist in the Sierras. 
During the early summer of 1908 it was my 
privilege to spend a most delightful week with 
the birds in the Sierra Nevadas in Fresno 
county, California. 
This outing was especially enjoyable as it was 
the fulfilment of a long-cherished desire—an 
ever-increasing hope that I might meet on their 
breeding grounds several species of birds known 
previously only as occasional winter visitants. 
Among these were the blue-fronted jay, the 
Western robin and the sierra junco. 
Our camp was made near the shore of Shaver 
Lake, a body of clear, cold water picturesquely 
formed by building a large dam across the lower 
end of a canon through which a mountain stream 
had formerly found its way. This lake covered 
a considerable area and many large pines were 
left standing in the water. These trees soon 
died and at the time of our visit were to be 
seen as large, ragged, decaying stubs, some 
standing only a few feet above the surface of 
the water, while others rose to a height of forty 
feet or more. These stubs afforded excellent 
nesting situations for a number of birds. 
The Brewer blackbirds ( Euphagus cyanoce- 
phalus ) seemed to realize that here was a re¬ 
treat where they were in little danger of being 
disturbed, and all of the nests of this species 
observed were built in these stubs. Many of 
them were in cavities excavated by flickers or 
other woodpeckers, while others were placed on 
the wind-broken tops of the trees; some were 
built against the body of the tree and supported 
at the base by a large branch, while one or two 
were snugly packed in behind a large slab of 
loose bark. 
The nesting dates with this colony of birds 
evidently varied somewhat, as birds were seen 
carrying building material the same day that 
others were observed feeding young. The only 
nest that was closely examined held four in¬ 
cubated eggs on May 27. 
Another species that made use of the cavities 
in these stubs was the tree swallow ( Iridoprocne 
bicolor ). These swallows were commonly seen 
skimming over the lake and were frequently ob¬ 
served entering holes, most of which were high 
up and so difficult of access. 
In the same stub with the nest of blackbirds 
last mentioned was a swallow’s nest with eight 
or nine small young, the entrance being on the 
opposite side of the tree and about a foot higher 
up. One evening, just at sunset, a swallow was 
seen to poise for an instant on fluttering wings 
before a cavity and then to disappear within the 
tree, and although the trout were taking the 
hook in fine shape, we lost no time in pulling 
the boat up near the stub, where an excavation 
some eight inches in depth was found to contain 
a soft lining of white feathers in which eight 
eggs were almost half buried. 
One of the commonest birds throughout this 
mountain region was the Western robin ( Merula 
migratoria propinqua). They were found to be 
nesting principally in small oaks at lower alti¬ 
tudes, but near the region of the lake the 
majority of them placed their bulky, conspicu¬ 
ous, mud-plastered nests in small evergreens 
where two or three small branches extended in 
a horizontal position from near the top of the 
tree. Some were found, however, in other posi¬ 
tions, as in old buildings around deserted mills, 
on the timbers of a flume, one in a small bush 
not over three feet from the ground, and one 
was placed in a niche of an old burnt stub stand¬ 
ing at the roadside. This nest was not con¬ 
cealed in any way, but the robin that occupied 
it sat serenely upon her treasures apparently in¬ 
different to the many wagons and teams that 
frequently passed. 
The sierra j uncos ( Junco hyemails thurberi) 
were everywhere abundant, and many nests with 
small young or eggs were found after I had 
spent two or three days in learning how to look 
for them. After tramping around for a time 
in what seemed to be a favorable place, a pair 
of j uncos were sometimes disturbed and went 
through all the usual methods of feigning lame¬ 
ness to draw the intruders’ attention from, the 
vicinity of their homes. It generally required 
only a few moments to form an idea as to the 
approximate location of the nest. After this 
the birds were left undisturbed for some hours 
when a hurried and unexpected tramping through 
the pine needles and underbrush often resulted 
in the flushing of the bird from the nest. 
A bird that has always been to me an interest¬ 
ing subject for ornithological study is the blue- 
fronted jay ( Cyanocitta stellcri frontalis). My 
first acquaintance with this jay began during the 
winter of 1900-01 when a great many of these 
splendid birds left their usual haunts among the 
pine and oak clad mountains and spread out 
over a portion of the San Joaquin valley. Just 
how extensive a local migration this was re¬ 
mained a matter of doubt, but the birds were 
very numerous in the region about Fresno, fre¬ 
quenting the trees along the roadsides and canals. 
Large, noisy and very conspicuous these unfortu¬ 
nate jays offered excellent targets for every 
passing gunner and no doubt their numbers 
were reduced somewhat when the horde of 
crested, blue-coated visitors returned to their 
sierran home almost as suddenly as they had 
made their appearance, leaving no clue by which 
one might learn the cause of their sojourn here. 
They did not again appear, although each suc¬ 
ceeding winter they were looked for with much 
