Page:Condor13(5).djvu/10

156 THE CONDOR Vol. XIII afternoon (the cavity faced in a westerly direction), and this platform was ap- parently leaves and cedar bark covered with dirt. As a food supply there were the hindquarters of a cottontail rabbit, a pocket gopher (77?oJ?omys), and three young Pinyon Jays, just about large enough to leave the nest. The heads of these latter were ntissing. When I passed through Paonia in 1903, I had no time to investigate the nest, even if it was not probably too late in the season, June first. While staying fit Gaume's ranch in the northwestern part of Baca County, the last of May, 1905, a pair of Horned Owls had two young in a hole or small cave in the sandstone bluffs which formed the back of the corrals. I could see at times an hdult and young bird, and at times both the young, sitting at the edge of the hole. I estimated this as thirty feet above the bottom of the bluff, and ten be- low the top. I did not visit the place itself, though I could have done so easily enough, but put it off too loug, and then the time came for me to leave. I first saw the place May 20; on the 24th I found on the hill above and back of the nest a dead young owl. My notes say that its body was covered with down, and the wing feathers about half grown out. I did not see any birds about the nest after th. is. The people at the ranch told me that the owls had never molested their poultry though there were many chickens of all sizes and ages running about everywhere below the nest. This seems rather strange, considering the reputation of the birds as poultry thieves, and for general destructiveness. Perhaps the owls appreciated the fact that their existence depended on their good behavior, and acted accordingly. MAY NOTES FROM SAN JACINTO LAKE By G. WILLETT and ANTONIN JAY WITH THREE PHOTOS N THE morning of May 27, the present year, the writers left Los Angeles by automobile for a short ornithological trip, our objective point being San Jacinto Lake, or Mystic Lake as it is called on most maps, which is situ- ated in west central Riverside County, California. This lake is in the Sah Jacinto Valley, at an altitude of about 1500 feet. It is in reality nothing more than a slough or sink, being only about two nailes long and from a quarter to a half mile wide. In no part of it is the water more than waist deep. Along the shores and for a hundred or more feet out into th'e water is'a luxu- rious growth of marsh grass, which is a feeding ground for numerous birds that are partial to frog's eggs and pollywogs, mosquitos and other insects. It is also a breeding ground for coots, grebes and some of the ducks. At the east end of the lake are extensive tule beds, in some places so thick that they are almost impossi- ble to penetrate. In these tule thickets are found the main nesting colonies, and the abundance and variety of the breeding birds makes this locality one of the most interesting of its kind in southern California. The lake has been previously visited by several ornithologists, among them being A.M. Ingersoll and W. B. Judson, who visited it in June, 1897, and O. W. Howard and H. J. Lelande, who were there in the summer of 1910. From information furnished us by them we were well posted in advance as to what birds we might expect to find there.. We were