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Jan., 1911 A HISTORY OF CERTAIN GREAT HORNED OWLS 19 and in this a pair of Red-tailed Hawks trod built their bulky aerie in a tall white ash tree, seventy-five feet from the ground. Following the custom of most of their tribe when suitable hollow trees are no longer to be had, the big owls appropriated this new refuge and in it, in spite of rain, sleet, snow, and wind, successfully raised their brood. To be sure we had no exact proof that these were the very owls with which we had dealt in other years, nevertheless we felt morally certain. The new locality was the nearest available one and for many years, until 1908, had not boasted its pair of owls. The years 1909 and 1910 add nothing new to the history of the owls except that, in the former year, a January gale destrOYed the nest in the ash tree and the valiant pair were apparently forced to a new, but similar, retreat. Their history, so far as we were concerned, was a closed one. During the season of 1907 ?[ had located five pairs of Great Horned Owls within a radius of seveu miles of Mt. Vernon. None of these could be intimately studied except the pair whose history I have tried to trace. In February of 1910 I again tried to locate breeding birds of this species, but without success. In spite of the big fellow's tenacity in clinging to a locality once chosen, in spite of his cleverness in escaping observation, it almost seems now that the coming of the wanton shot~gun army and the going of the protecting forests were gradually making the Great Horned Owl, along with many another species without 'which the woods are stiller and humanity poorer, in the more settled parts of our country at least, a member of a vanishing race. NESTING OF THE CALIFORNIA CUCKOO By ALFRED C. SHELTON WITH ONE PHOTO USSIAN River, flowing through northern Sonoma County, and emptying i'nto the Pacific Ocean at Duncan's Mills, receives one small tributary from the soutl2, designated on the map as Laguna de Santa Rosa. In the locality of which I write, about fiv.e miles southeast of Sebastopol, this stream, known locally as the "Lagoon", becomes, after some winter storm, a turbulent river, flooding acres upon acres of bottom land. Iu summer its course is marked by a chain of long, rather narrow pouds, many of which are deep. The banks, and mhch of the intervening space between these ponds, are covered with a thick growth of willow, small ash and scrub oak, while the whole is tangled together with an undergrowth of poison-oak, wild blackberry and various creepers, forming, as it were, an im- penetrable jungle, hanging far out over the water. Occasionally there is an opening in the brush, and iu such a case, the bauk is fringed with pond-lilies and tall rushes, and here may be caught black bass and cat-fish, together with an occasional trout. To one who may perchance take au interest in the leathered inhabitants, this old lagoon has an especial attraction, for it is a breeding home of the Califorifia Cuckoo. Of all migratory birds breeding in this vicinity, the Cuckoo is the last to arrive in the spring, usually appearing during the latter part .of May or the first week of June. Upon its arrival, this bird keeps to the higher land, among the oaks and other timber, for a period of two or three weeks before retiring to the willow bottoms to breed. During this period it is wild and shy and difficult to