144 THE CONDOR ' Vol. 111 a dainty wreath of slender bleached bones, chiefly from fishes. The spot chosen for the eggs was about two-hun. dred yards from the surf, on the level beach sand, near the center of the broad opening of one of the gullies in the sand-dunes. There was no distinguish- ing mark or object near the eggs, and nothing in the slightest to protect the set from destruction. The Plover was sitting on the nest when it was found and betrayed its presence by gliding off on the close approach of Mr. Jackson. She remained at a distance while we were in the neighborhood, but several hours later while in the vicinity I found a bird sitting on the empty nest. She ran off on our approach. About twenty-five yards from this set we found two eggs, several feet apart and on an open flat stretch of sand a little nearer the breakers. I concluded that the wind had blown apart the eggs of an incomplete set. Two more Snowy Plovers were found in this neighborhood, but I was unable to locate their nests or young; but late that afternoon while crossing the sand dunes I stirred up another bird. We had run across a-hillock of chips of broken flint, intermixed with shells and a few bones; evidently au Indian mound. While examining this inter- esting spot I noticed a Plover feigning a broken wing. She would run to within eight or ten yards of me and dropping on one side, would hold the wing of the other up above her back, and crying piteously, would drag herself away. I sat down to await results and after a few minutes she stopped, panting vio- lently, and apparently seriously wounded. Finding that I made no move she tried again and again, until she started within ten feet of me in her endeavor to attract attention and pur- suit. But as night was rapidly ap- proaching, and we were twenty miles from camp, I could not stop long enough to work out the object of her solicitude, but for the twenty minutes we were in the neighborhood her efforts to decoy us were unceasing. I was especially interested in this in- cident. Without doubt the bird had either eggs or young in that immediate vicinity; yet that Indian mound was at least a quarter of a mile from the beach --several large hills of drifting sand in- tervening. Is it the habit of these plovers to nest so far from the surf? Leaving this anxious bird, we pushed on to the beach, striking it some dis- tance below the buggy. Before we had fairly reached the sands, Jackson called metohis side and pointed to the sand at his feet. There stretched out as if dead but with bright open eyes, lay a plover, even smaller than the first. It had sought no shelter but was trying to conceal its presence by stillness, even on the open sand, for there was no sheltering object near. We approached closer .and closer until I could have touched the bird with my hand, but no movement on its part evinced life; so we left it, and were soon on the ht mexvard road. An Additional Specimen of Nyctale.l:rom Lake Tahoe, 'T HE young male mentioned in "Land Birds of the Paci- fic District" was captured in a dwelling on the evening of Sept. 2?, x899 at Tahoe City, where it may have been reared, asI had been told of small owls that came about the dwelling at night. My second speci- men was taken in a dense alder thicket near McKinney's August 23, t9ot. It was a young female; I shot it about ?o o'clock in the morning. Its stomach was full of fur and the bones of a small animal. Possibly both individuals were mi- grants from the north, but I have long supposed that this owl was a summer resident of the east slope of the Sierras, though I have never heard one and have gone many times to what thought were favorable parts. of the for-
