Page:Condor21(1).djvu/21

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20 THE CONDOR Vol. XXI grass for lining. Bird gave the dong or creak note after we had taken the nest. 5?ale afterwards sang snatches of song in the distance, but neither put in an ap- pearance. This makes the sixth set of Townsend Solitaire which we have taken in ten days. It is altogether probable that this species is the commonest and best dis- tributed in the Shasta fir belt and the mixed belt immediately below. If we reckon the belt at three miles wide and fifty long, and allow for each pair of birds an area one-quarter of a mile square, we have fifteen hundred as the Solitaire population of Shasta, a figure I believe to be well within the mark. Mr. Vrooman was particularly successful in finding old nests, as well as Fig. 5. NESTINO SITE IN DWARF MANZANITA. LOCA- TION OF NEST 218/4-16 IS INDICATED BY WHITE X. new. lie showed me another ancient relic in a rotten stump three feet up, and told me of four which he had found in upturned roots of fallen trees. Besides this he showed me an abandoned claim in a cranny formed by a broken but not completely severed tree, where the birds had deposited a few twigs, a bit of moss and several blades of grass. The evidence was scanty but sufficient. But also the cause of dissatisfaction was manifest, for the quarters were quite too narrow. Santa. Barbara, August 4, 1916: Having still to blow the eggs of V150/ 3-16 T. S., I pause to note exact colorings. In ground color the three eggs repre- sent the two types of coloration spoken of by Grinnell in his San Bernardino Re-