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'Mar., 1914 SOME DISCOVERIES IN THE FOREST AT FYFFE 65 a considerable time. After prospecting one dead tree they would alight at the foot of another and work upward. Flying thus from tree to tree, with a rather crow-like flight, they gradually disappeared from view down the canyon. Nearing Fyffe, along the irrigation stream, a rather favorite haunt of bird- life, I found two nests. The first, one of the Sierra Junco, held four fairly well incubated eggs, and was made of rootlets, moss and grasses, and lined with wild animal hair. It was entirely concealed by the overhanging foliage of a s.mall cedar and alder. The second nest, one of the Spurred Towhee, held four fresh eggs, and was completely concealed amid mountain misery and dead brakes. It was composed o? bark strips, grasses, stems, leaves and brake, and lined with fine grasses. Towards evening, in company with a friend who. kindly volunteered to aid me in searching a wide patch of mountain misery for a nest of the Calaveras Warbler (Vermivora ruficapilla gutturalis), now my particular desideratum, I jou. rneyed down Webber Canyon about a mile southwest of Fyffe. While round- ing a rather open hillside covered with mountain misery, I spied a tell-tale feather adhering to the edge of a cavity-entrance in a dead tree-trunk fourteen feet up. I thought it probably the home of some bluebird or ?:hickadee, and my surprise can well be imagined when inspection showed it to contain a brood of Saw-Whet Owls (Cryptoglaux acadica acadica) whose breeding here was not only.a record for Fyffe, but for California. As it was now almost nightfall I postponed further investigation until I would have opportunity, with returning daylight, to make use of the camera. The weather, wh,_'ch had been sunny and pleasant since my arrival, turned cloudy next day (May ?7), and for a time a mist-like rain fell. While en route to the owl's nest I noticed a flock of eleven Band-tailed Pigeons in a thick grove of lofty pines. Farther on I met with a pair of Blue-fronted Jays, whose nest eight feet up in a manzanita, on a steep hillside, proved to be just completed. Although I did not approa[h within several feet of this nest, the birds abandoned it, for on revisiting the tree on May 2o, I found it had been deserted. Chopping out the Saw-Whet Owl's nest revealed five almost full-fledged young and a freshly killed mouse. The cavity was fourteen feet from the ground, and the entrance so small that it seemed the parent birds could have gained ad- mittance only with difficulty. Offering little resistance beyond clicking their bills, the five diminutive owlets were carried nearly a mile before 1 found a suitable place wherein to photograph them. Never have I met with more xvilling subjects;. for although they could fly a short distance, they made no attempt to escape but sat wondrous wise, staring out across the wide expanse of Webber Canyon. Be- sides taking the group, one of the birds, apparently the oldest, and there was considerable difference in this respect, was photographed perched on a near-by stump. The breeding of this owl here being a state record, I deemed it advisable to send one of tile birds to Mr. Joseph Grinnell at the University of California (now no. 23463? Museum of Vertebrate Zoology), while another I kept in cap- tivity and brought back with me to San Francisco. This bird was about the most interesting pet I ever possessed. It would perch contentedly for a half hour or more at a time on one's shoulder or finger or upon some point of vantage, apparently wisely conscious of all that was transpiring around it. The bird had a curius habit of bobbing. its head rapidly up and down, in addition to the usual movement sideways. Only at night did I hear the curious, wild, and rather grat- ing cry, for during the day the bird was silent save for clicking its bill off and on like a pair of castanets.. In all, it was about the dearest little pet I ever owned