Mar.,1918 SIX WEEKS IN THE HIGH SIERRAS IN NESTING TIME 71 drove me back to camp. The next day I observed a pair of California Jays (Aphelocoma californica californica), a new bird for Bijou and Lake Valley and whose occurrence here is really remarkable when one considers the fact that a high mountain area of between fifty and sixty miles separated these birds from their usual haunts (the western Sierran foot-hills), while to the east, only a few miles over the range, the Woodhouse Jay is to be found in not greatly dissimilar country. Although residents told me the birds had been seen about for several weeks, they were apparently not nesting. At Bijou, with its more open and mostly second growth timber, the season was earlier than at the northern end of the lake, but here, as along the Truckee River, the aspens and willows were still bare, and, although the snow was present only in patches, the brown turf beneath showed as yet no sign of the coming grass. Only two pairs of birds were noted engaged in nest-building--Mountain Chickadees ( Peuthestes gam- beli) in a stump and Cassin Purple Finches (Carpodacu? cassini) in a tall, unclimba- ble Jeffrey pine. The next day, May 15, a ?. trip was taken to Rowland's Marsh. Here, on an island, , I ?vitnessed the arrival of thousands of Tree Sxvallows ( Iridoprocne bicolor). A hun- dred pairs or so took up homes in the vicinity. ;vhilc ?.?-?x the others flying north and northwest, continued on " after a short rest. In the marsh pond lilies were just budding out beneath the water, the tules, flattened and brown, were lying dead, while the marsh grass, in Fig. {]. 'BELTED KIlOFISHER WHICH ]?ET DEATH BY places where the snow had BECOMi?O ENTANGLED IN WIRE FElqCI.?iO; BiJOU, AT LAmir TahOE, MAY 18. retreated along the shore, was making its first feeble appearance after the long winter sleep. The trip to the marsh was taken primarily for the purpose of investigating the nesting of the Canada Goose, which I have treated in a previous article (CoN?os, xIv, 1912, p. 70). Sleet fell on May 16 and the day was dark, windy and cold. Near Lakeside Park (Stateline P. O.) I noted a Western Evening Grosbeak (Hesperipho.na ves- pert6ta ?,onta.na) the first I have recorded for Lake Valley. Not far distant, for some time I watched the tactics of rival pairs of Mountain Chickadees and West- ern Bluebirds (Sialia mexicana occidentalis), both trying to build in the same cavity, while from an aspen a Modoc Woodpecker (Dryobates villosus orius) was flushed from a nest-cavity twenty feet from the ground and holding four fresh eggs. On the way to Cave Rock next day, near Edgewood (Nevada) I noted a col ony of Cliff Swallows (Petrocbelidon lunifro.ns lu?ifrons) engaged in plastering
