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198 THE. CONDOR Vol. XIV notes. One, probably the male's, was a very high pitched staccato affair, and the other similar but much lower, softer and more liquid. The soft notes finally started in one place about 200 yards away, but for some reason this fact did not dawn on me until it was too late to see if a nest might be located by waiting every evening nearer and nearer to the ap- parent location. The other bird appeared to roost in one place most of the time, but not always, and much farther off. Both w?ee in the heavy timber away from the open stretches _ High up on the Big Elder Trail, leading from Waldo, Oregon, to Afthouse Creek, another owl was heard, apparently not a variation of the great horned owl's call, although it must have been a large owl. The notes were "Hoot--hoot-toot--hoo-oo-o-o_o,,. The long dashes represent pauses of fully two seconds each, the first three notes being very short and sharp, while the last was prolonged for about a second, making each song (?) last about five seconds. This was the regular call and never varied on the two or three occa- sions that I passed there at night. In the dark I traveled by feeling the trail with my feet in the inky darkness of the big fir timber; it is curious that it is possible to walk quite fast that way, the ground on each side of the trail being so much softer in the woods and rougher in rocky places, that the differ- ence is instantly noticeable to the feet if the trail is left. Several pairs of Hermit Thrushes kept the "desolate woods" anything but desolate around my camp during the day, but I have never yet heard a Willow Thrush--that is if the note is anything like the Wilson Thrush. Capen de- scribes this as being like the sound made when a 'marble is rolled around in a big iron ket- tle, which seems to me not a bad description, as, although the sound varies, it lacks the sharp change of other thrush notes that I have heard. Her- mir and Black-throated Gray warblers were also conspicuous neighbors around my camp, but most of the birds of this section prefer more open country Fig. 81. (2. W. BOWLES' (2AMP AT KERB, OREGON, IN SUMMER, SHOWING DETAILED (2ONSTRU(2TION Hummingbirds also nest in the big timber, probably more often than anywhere else, judging from'the number of Bmles, although I have found only three nests. One was about one hundred feet from my tent, forty feet from the ground in one of the largest firs; it was about twenty feet out on a small twig and beneath a large branch. Males killed by a cat in Kerby were Rufous, making it probable that the nest near camp belonged to that species although the male was not seen during the whole season. The special attraction of the neighborhood to the female was the large pile of ashes left from the brush I had burned. Apparently she came at least five times every day throughout the nesting season, as I was seldom at camp without at least one visit. On each occasion she would dip down into the ashes five or six times and pick up a mouthful, once about six feet from me. Apparently it was ashes she wanted and not small specks of charcoal. I was sorely tempted to shoot her