66 THE CONDOR I VoL. V great wave of migration was at its height. Tanagers were seen everywhere, and noticed by everyone. After May 5o they decreased in numbers, and by May 56 the last ones had left the valley. The number of these tanagers now breeding in our mountains is no larger than usual." He also says, "the damage done to cher- ries in one orchard was so great that the sales of the fruit which was left, did not balance the bills paid out for poison and ammunition. The tanagers lay all over the orchard, and were, so to speak, 'corded up' by hundreds under the trees." It will be seen that the main body of this wave of migration did not reach this part of the state till eight days later--May 55 at Haywards. The last ones were seen June 4 to 6 at Haywards, while at Pasadena Mr. Gaylord says the last ones were seen May 58, eight days earlier than those which were observed here. There must have been thousands of tanagers destroyed all through the path of their movement along the state, as they worked their way to the breeding grounds. What caused these unusually large numbers of tanagers to move so regularly through the State, can hardly be known with accuracy. It may have been brought about by a late cold wave meeting them on their way northward from their winter home in Central America, and they may have been impelled to move together in large companies to where food was plenty, and the weather milder. On April ?5 we had a hard killing frost all through the State, which would, no doubt, throw these tanagers together, as it did many other of our spring migrants. This fact I noted while in camp at the foot o? Mt. Diablo, April ix to x9, x896. On one or two mornings large numbers of birds were observed in the can- yon, while it was warm and sunny. But as soon as the cold spell set in, all bird life seemed to have suddenly disappeared, to appear again several days later. This was particularly true of the white-throated swifts and violet-green swallows. Three times the birds left the canyon bare of the summer visitors. The last time they returned late one afternoon, when, at sundown, the air was alive with swal- lows and swifts sailing along the face of the cliffs, or over the tops of the oaks. The next morning found the canyon awake with bird life and song, showing that the cold wave had passed. The Harris Hawk on His Nesting Ground. BY FI?ORENCE M?RRIAM BAII?E. IFTEEN miles west of Corpus Christi, Petranilla Creek throws a belt of rich vegetation across the prairie. Its walls are crowned with elms and live oaks whose serried branches are hung with waving gray moss, while encircling a floor massed with pink primroses grow a mixture of Mexican and United States trees and bushes--hackberry, ash, palmetto, all-thorns and cactus. Birds and mammals naturally flock here and also show southern admixtures, the clay banks of the creek being tracked up by coon, coyote, wild cat, and armadillo, while in April and May the trees are alive with such birds as the cuckoo, chat, wren, wood pewee, kingbird, cardinal, and a variety of warblers including the blackburnJan, together with the golden-fronted woodpecker and nonpariel. As we were admiring. the beauty of the place our attention was attracted by the cries of a mockingbird pirouetting around a big Harris hawk (Parabuteo uni- cinctus harrisi) perched on the bare top of a tree in the open. The mocker would
