Page:Condor3(1).djvu/10

to THE CONDOR I Vol. i1! in a small cypress tree at the roadside. Driving up to the fence I stood up in my buggy in time to see a shrike flit off her nest which contained five fresh eggs. As my destination was a small stream about a nfile and a half farther down the road I left the nest until I should return. Imagine my surprise when I went to collect the set to find six eggs instead of five! The fenrole had deposited an egg while I was gone. Desiring some specimens of the shrike for skins, I shot the fenrole as she flew froln the nest. On the 22nd of March I again drove out to the stream mentioned above and as I passed the cypress tree I saw another nest upon the same spot. Climbing up to it I was rewarded with a nice set of six eggs. The male bird had secured another mate, they had built a nest and the female laid a set of six eggs in the the short space of seventeen days! The female is a very close sitter, especially if the eggs are incubated, in some cases allowing herself to be touched before leaving the nest. The nest is a bulky structure placed in some convenient fork of a cypress or willow or in a thick bunch of twigs near the end of a drooping oak limb, at heights varying from five to thirty feet from the ground. It is composed of an outer layer of coarse twigs, with a fill- ing of rope, straw, string, grasses or al- most any soft substance available and lined with feathers, cotton or wool, usually feathers. The eggs range from five to seven in number, although I have taken one set of eight, and they are usually of a dull grayish ground color, although I have found some specimens showing a de- cidedly greenish cast. They are spot- ted with light brown, olive and some- times purple, which is in most s?eci- mens heaviest at the larger end. Sixteen specimens from five different sets in the writer's collection average .96x.7 x. The extremes are x.o6x.7x, .86x.69 and .99x.75 . I might here record a set of albino shrike's eggs which were taken by a "small boy" near my home in x894. Four of the seven eggs in the set were pure white, the other three being whtte, very sparsely spotted with a light shade of brown. I used every in- ducement to secure the set for my col- lection but they could be obtained for neither love nor money. This is the only case of albinism I have ever seen in a great many sets of shrikes' eggs ex- amined, so I am led to believe it is quite a rare occurrence. I believe the period of incubation is fourteen days. The young are very interesting little creatures when they are just leaving the nest and it is said they make inter- esting pets if taken at this time and raised. Perhaps it would be well to re- late an experiment along this line which I once witnessed, and which was a decided failure. March x6th, x9oo, w?ile at work in an orchard I found two young birds just learning to fly, in a live oak tree and after an exciting chase, I succeed- ed in capturing them. Placing them in my lunch basket I started for hom?, the old birds meanwhile following me close- ly. Finally, the young birds became quiet in the basket and the old birds took their departure, after following me almost a mile. The same evening I took the youg birds to the residence of Mr. Barlow, thinking perhaps he would like to see them alive before I skinned them. Imagine my surprise to hear him say he thought he Would raise them! As they were evidently hungry he brought out some oysters and pro- ceeded to fill them up, whereupon they immediately turned up their toes and ?vere in due time added to our collec- tion. The California Shrike is a bird of very unsavory reputation, and I think from all my ubservations that he no doubt deserves it. His favorite past- time seems to be in catching crickets, grasshoppers, lizards, small snakes and even small birds and impaling them up- on a barbed wire fence or some sharp