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178 THE CONDOR Vol. X on climbing, found five eggs. While I was up at the crow's ndst the mallard duck and her mate both circled about above me, "quack-quacking" anxiously as they saw me perched so con- spicuously in the tree top. This was the first time I had seen the drake at all and from their ac- tions I concluded the eggs must be' about ready to hatch. As I was leaving the slough bank I saw .them both swimming to- gether a short distance off, wait-- ing to see if I would not go away. I fully intended to watch faith- fully from now on and visit the nest each day, on the chance that I might be on hand when the young were hatched our and ready to descend from the tree. But something detained me each day, until it was May 8 before I again went to Columbia Slough. Not far from the nest tree I flushed the drake from a little pond in the nearby pasture. The ducks were evidently still in the neighborhood. I approached the Fig. 50. NEST AND EGGS O1? MALLARD ON TREE TRuNK tree cautiously but could see i?othing on the nest, even when within fifteen feet of it. I knew the mallard would not sit so close before, and when I climbed to the nest my fears were realized. I was just too late! There were the empty egg shells. Probably not far away were nine mallard ducklings, swimming and diving, not worrying in the least about how they got there. CALL-NOTES AND MANNERISMS OF THE WREN-TIT By J. GRINNELL (Cor?tribution from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California) I VCAS AROUSED to the point of assembling the facts for the present sketch by reading an account of the notes and habits of the Wren-tit in a certain popular book on California birds. The account referred to was so at vari- ance with my own impressions of the bird in question that it led me to wonder