66 TIIE CONDOR Vol. XVI and I felt the loss keenly when it died shortly after my return home, This speci- men was given to the ,California Academy of Sciences. At no time on the sev- eral visits I made to the nest'of the Saw-Whet Owls were the parent birds seen, although on several occasions I waited patiently for them to appear. While returning to F.vffe, after my work at the owl nest, I noted an Em- pidonax, either hammondi or wrighti, a Cassin Vireo ( Lani'?qrco solitarius cas-- sini.), which was engaged m nest building, and a Red-breasted Nuthatch drilling in a lofty and practically inaccessible nesting site. It rained hard (luring the night. and continued intermittently the next day (May t8), making the woods so wet that field work ?vas not only unpleasant but l?ig. 29. NESTING SITE OF THE SAW-WHET OWL Ol?l A RATHER OPEI?I HILL SLOPE II?l WEBBER CAI?IOI?I, SOUTHWEST OF I?FFE. THE CAVITY OCCU- PIED WAS FOuRTEEI?I FEET ?,BOVE THE GROUI?ID II?l THE LARGE STuB I1? CEI?ITER OF PICTURE. ?MouI?ITAII?I l?IISER ? ?CARPETS THE FOREGROUI?ID. dangerous, on account of the slippery condition of the tree trunks. After cov- ering several miles through the dripping forest I confiued my work to the more open hillsides and to those sections that edged along the high road. Among the bird-homes found during the day, two were curiously an exact repetition of what I had found two days previously. The first, one of the Sierra Junco, held four eggs well along in incnbation, and was hidden under a fallen pine log on the edge of a corral. It was made of stems, and lined with fine light-colored grasses and animal hair. The second nest, as before, was a Spurred Towhee's, and was hidden in mountain misery along the irrigation ditch. The bird was flushed from its nest of stems and grasses, lined with fine grasses, disclosing four fresh eggs.
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