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THE CONDOt. Bulletin of the Cooper Ornithological Club. A BI-?[ONTHLY EXPONENT OF CALIFORNIAN ORNITHOLOGY. Vol. 3. No. ?. Santa Clara, Cal., January-February, 1901. $?.oo a Year. Bird Notes From Tacoma ulches BY J. H. HIS form of bird study is among the most difficult of an? I have ever attempted, and a few words of description may not come amiss. These gulches or ravines were undoubtedly caused by glacial action, are often several miles long, and all run into Puget Sound. They vary from 80 to ioo feet in depth, have small trout brooks running through them, and are filled with underbrush and debris of all descriptions. In many places the bottoms are well wooded with fir and cedar. The difficulties of thoroughly search- ing such places nmy easily be imagined, but they fade rapidly before the abund- ance of bird life to be found. A sketch of a trip taken May 9, I895, will give a fairly typical day. I;irst to strike the oological eye were the high, perpendic- ular clay walls, with here and the?e th? nesting holes of the Rough-winged Swallow (Stel?idojkteryx serrijkennis), and Belted Kingfisher (Ceryle alcyon), the former bird only digging a nest for itself when all burrows of the latter are tenanted. These nests are ahnost invari- ably inaccessible, as they vary in height from forty to seventy feet above one's reach. While gazing at them with regretful longing, the stillness was suddenly broken by the beautiful, bell-like warble of the Western Winter Wren (Anorthura BOWLES. hiemqlis ikqcifica)--to my mind one of the most charnfing singers of the north- west. Then I knew my work was cut out, for within half a mile must be his nest, which, together with its contents, would make a most welcome addition to my collection. I walked to the edge of the brook and, after traveling a short distance along it, the way was blocked by a giant fir that, in falling years before, had split in the middle. From deep in this split appeared suspicious- looking twigs, but past experience had taught me not to expect the real nest within a hundred yards of a singing Winter Wren. Nor was I mistaken this time, for it proved to be nothing more than a well-built "decoy," about which the bird made a very natural "bluff" of anxiety. The tree being fully six feet in diam- eter and covered with vegetation of all kinds, my climb over it was accomplished with considerable noise, and on sliding down on the other side I was promptly greeted with an angry buzz. It proved to come from a female Rufous Humming- bird (Selasjkhorus rufus), and seldom have I seen such an atom of concentrat- ed rage. A close inspection of the vicinity showed her to have good grounds for anger, as in my slide I had passed within a few inches of her nest with its set of two eggs. It was saddled