THE CONDOR VoL. IX had time to investigate a new canyon. The first tree I found containing a nest was a large live-oak. A stick thrown into the branches flusheri a bird, but it was not ared-tail. Yes, another horned owl! The twenty-second of March was pretty late, but the temptation was too great; so up I went fifty-five feet into the very top of the live-oak to be greeted by a rather surprised look from a big bunch of white down. There was an egg also, but it was addled. This I took, for it was the only addled egg of this species I ever found. One would thiuk that I had all the horned owls in San Diego County cor- ralled by this tinhe. But San Diego County is a large one and but sparingly settled. The more you travel about the more you find. The twenty-ninth of March found me after red-bellied hawk's eggs in the historic San Luis Rey river bottom. I had taken a nice set of three and was about to start for home when a strange nest caught my eye some distance up the river. A stick thrown at the structure flushed a horned owl; but it was late in the day, as well as in season, so I left her without further molestation. Numerous pairs of owls are not the only things we are thankful for in my locality, for the collector admires the size of the trees. Southern California does not boast of such giant sycamores as those of Illinois in Patrick Henry's tinhe; for my highest record is but sixty-three feet, while fi?ty feet is a good average. iffscondido, California. BIRDS OBSERVED FROM MARYSVILLE TO GRASS VALLEY BY LOUIS BOLANDER AST year I had the fortune to attend a surveying party in California from Marysville, Yuba County, to Grass Valley, Nevada County, some twenty- six miles. We also went from Lime Kiln, a place on the line between the last two named places, to Auburn, Placer County. The first Sunday I crossed the bridge to the south, leading from Marysville into the bottomlands of the Yuba river. What was once orchards and fields is now a waste of bottomlands coverert with brush, swamps and trees. This waste was caused by the sediment from hydraulic mines and dredgers up near Hammort City gradually filling the river bert. Marysville, described in older geographies as a city on bluffs at the junction of the Feather and Yuba Rivers, is now surrounded by levees. At this date (May 6, 1906) Marysville was three feet below the bed of the river and in danger of flooding. Even as one enters the bottomlands rows of fruit trees can be seen apparently growing out of the saud and here and there is a house top sticking up, mute evidence of the power of uature over man. I no sooner entered this barren district than I saw a nest up in an alder tree about six feet from the ground. Upon climbing up I flushed the mother bird, a close sitter, and found one fresh egg of the western chipping sparrow (,%?pizel/a socialis arizouce). The nest was made of light-colored straws loosely put together, lined with a few black horsehairs, and easily seen from the ground. All the tinhe I kept near the nest the mother kept up a chirping, at the sanhe tinhe flying around in the bushes close to the ground. The male did not come near at all. About a hundred yards further in the brush I canhe across a small patch of
