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18 VoL. XII SOME BIRD NOTES FROM VENTURA COUNTY By J. R. PEMBERTON URING June and July of this year the writer was engaged in geological work in Ventura County, California. The haunts of rocks and birds are identical and no amount of conscientiousness of a man toward his job will keep him from dropping 'a fossil now and then, and spotting some old or new leathered acquaintance. Such, indeed, was my experience, and even if I didOmiss a few geological landmarks I hope it may in a way be justified by the following bird notes. Birds in this region were numerous, and in great variety. An extended account would for the most part be a repetition of known facts, so I give only the interesting, at least to me, notes which I took. Observations were made upon several species of birds which one would hardly expect to find summering in Ventura County. These few species are regularly transient in this region, but pass on in the spring for the Sierra Nevada where their summer home is made. The migration is, no doubt, because of the instinctive desire for the peculiar conditions in which breeding must take place. It is interesting to speculate upon the conditions necessary to cause birds of this kind to remain. The interesting stragglers are natives of the Transition zone. The higher parts of the Santa Ynez Mountains are in this zone and it is in these mountains and along the edges that the following birds were noted. Dendroica nigrescens. Black-throated Gray Warble?. Frequently seen along the Rincon Creek, from Stanley Park, with an elevation of 400 feet to the sure,nit of the Santa Ynez Mountains, elevation 4900 feet. At the summit, amid a thick growth of ]:?scudolsu?a macrocarpa, surroundings were found which were apparently identical with those at the home of this bird in the low Sierras. On June 23, 1909, a male bird was watcht for some time as it carried food to a brood of young. The nest was built among the leaves of a fir, at the end of a limb about 30 feet above the ground. The female was not seen. The characteristic song of this species when heard, would immediately impress one by the apparently perfect happiness of this bird, so far away from its usual summer home. Dendroica auduboni. Audubon Warbler. A single male was watcht several minutes and carefully identified on July 3, 1909, on the headwaters of the Santa Ynez river, at an elevation of 2500 feet. Lanivireo solitarius cassini. Cassin Vireo. This loud-calling Vireo was seen and heard in many places in Matilija Canyon, on Rincon Creek, Coyote Creek and Santa Ana River in numbers nearly equaling Vireosylva gilva swainsore'. While usually given as a summer resident of the Sierras, this Vireo has been found nesting at several localities in the Coast Ranges. Cohen records it from Lexington, Santa Clara County; Beck records it from near San Jose; Mailliard from Paicines, San Benito County, and the writer has later to record it from the Santa Lucia Moun- tains in Monterey County. Ventura County, however, is the most remote place in the Coast Ranges where this bird has been found in numbers in summer. Piranga ludoviciana. Western Tanager. The commonest of the unusual birds met with in Ventura County. All along the fir-covered tops of the Santa Ynez Mountains this bird was encountered. At our camp in Stanley Park, on Rincon Creek, at an elevation of 450 feet, a fine male bird used to pick bread crumbs from the ground around the table, and even from the table itself. The Japanese cook finally caught this bird and kept it some days, when it finally died. The female was never seen. This was on June 23, 1909.