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106 THE CONDOR Vol. XIV performance about fifteen times before going off to perch and preen himself on a Nicotiana. 1:42--Four White-throated Swifts just flew dizzily past high overhead, twit- teriug violently as is their wont. Two clashed and fell, fluttering for what looked like several hundred feet. Auother attached itself to the nucleus and all fell till I thought they would descend clear to the ground. But they separated in time to each dart off on his separate way. A male Costa Hummer is very diligerrt at the Pentstemons. In three cases he sipped at every one of the open flowers on each spike?6, 6, and 12--then sipped at one blossom of another spike and flew off. Several pairs of Lawrence Goldfinches are about with their wheezy notes. Also a pair of Willow Goldfinches (male not perfectly yellow, though fairly bright, but iu full song), and lots of Green-backed Goldfinches. 1:56?I have moved adross the waste lot about one hundred yards, and am seated on a stone-pile by the creek, with a walnut (Juglans californica) fifty feet away, several clumps of Nicotiana and some poison-oak thickets nearby. A Pasa- deua Thrasher is watching me from a Nicotiana 150 feet upstream. It has been bathing and is preening and shaking itself violently. There are several pairs of Willow Goldfinches drying themselves in the walnut and bushes nearby. Gold- finches seem more than most other birds to enjoy bathing; this in spite of its being a sunless day, dense high fog with even an occasional drizzle. A Black- headed Grosbeak has been singing from the walnut almost continuously siuce one o'clock. They are by far the most voluble singers of all the birds within hearing. Perhaps the Green-backed Goldfinches come in next. I have seen and heard both the Bullock and Arizona Hooded Orioles in the vicinity. This location is too near the uoisy brook for hearing birds, so I will move back to the other edge of the waste lot. 2:10--Just got an eight-foot view of a female Costa Hummer, at Nicotiana flowers. A flock, of separate pairs, mostly, of all three species of goldfinch are feeding in a rank patch of Amsinckia, evidently shelling out green seed pods at the bases of the flower spikes. There are at least two Long-tailed Chats singing, but I have only gotten a fleeting glimpse of one as it flushed from a brush pile. Just saw a Golden-crowned Sparrow. 2:25--1 just got a good view (twenty feet) of a Lincoln Sparrow in a pile of dry orauge trimmings. I saw probably the same bird a few minutes ago in the greeu weeds under the walnut by the stream. A Least Vireo has been in the oak or around the brush patch all the afternoon. It only sings occasioually, uttering its brief song three to five times, at intervals of five secouds or so. The "theme" is uttered with rising inflection, as if asking a question; then, with a falling inflec- tiou, as if replying. These two kinds of notes are uttered alternately. Each "theme" is a warbling jumble of vireo notes uttered hastily, with no care in pronunciation. The rising and falling inflections in alteruate themes is the best character of the soug. One of the Chats is singing now in plain view on a Nieo- tiana one hundred feet away. Song intervals: w 5 ch 4-w 6-3 ch 4 w 7 ch 3 w 5 ch 5 ch--it's hard to time the chat's song; the whistle (w) most always alternates with some sort of a chuck (ch). I should judge the intervals between the individual notes to average four seconds. He has beeu singing thus for fully five minutes. Sometimes a whistle is of four clear notes each with falling inflection and close together, very similar to a boy calling his dog; others are single clear whistles, loud and of carrying quality; then the chucks are, some, like a Parkman Wren