32 THE CONDOR [Vol. IV torquatus) flew as rapidly as possible through Donner Pass toward the Sacra- mento Valley, having been driven from the east slope--its summer home--by the storm. Numerous Belding's sperm- ophiles were scurrying about in the the meadow, exhibiting a hardihood with which I had not previously credited them, as they go into winter quarters about the tenth of September,--some- times earlier. My last observations here, at this time, were on the x.6th when, after a long search, I found the two nests I have mentioned in three inches of snow, Both contained three eggs and both had been deserted. The effect of such a storm on bird life can be easily imagined. Frequent sudden changes with snow may be expected from about 4,000 feet upward, anytime in May, and they are likely to occur until the middle of June. Besides de- stroying some nests the storm must have forced some birds to seek other nesting localities, lower in the mount- ains. About every second or third winter snow is nearly twenty feet deep on the level,--sometimes a foot or two deeper, and is so late in melting that few quail breed here, but travel on eastward un- til they find bare ground. I suppose birds have more trying experiences in these mountains during nesting time than they have in St. Michaels, Alaska, as the mean temperature is nearly the same in both, but in the Sierras there is much more snow. From the forego- ing it would seem that an inclenlent clinmte is the chief cause of bird scarci- ty in the high Sierras. However indi- viduals are hardly more numerous in the lower coniferous forest between 4,00o feet .and 2500 feet altitude, than in the same forest above these heights. The bulk of the birds iu the Sierras are in and near meadows and open parts of the forest,--especially the seed-eaters. Perhaps few species of Californian birds desire a home in the dense, lonely woods. In the chapparal belt below the fir forest, birds are abundant at all times, though they have apparently as many enemies as in other parts of these mountains, the California Jay (?lphelo-
coma californica) being more numerous
than in any other part of the state. Be- low this and in the extensive, sun- burned interior valleys, little water, vegetation and few insects are the causes of rarity of birds during the sum- mer, when the annual plants are ripe or withered by or previous to the first of June. Birds sometimes lived in these valleys several miles from water when there were but few farm-houses. I have found Valley Partridges (Loibhor- t,.r c. vallicolus) in oak groves when there was no water within two miles of them, and supposed they were able to live where they were by drinking dew- drops at morning and evening. In quite extensive waterless tracts in southern Lower California birds are abundant, as they find in the fruit and sap of cacti a substitute for water. Deer and cattle also thrive there if the cholla cactus is plentiful. On the al- most waterless Cedros Island wild goats or deer, perhaps both, opened the tops of the large Echinocactus with their hoofs, making a cap-like cavity in which the juice of the plant collected and gave the animal its much needed drink. The coyote shows equal ingen- uity on the dry west coast of central Lower California by digging in the sandy arroyos for water. If my Mexi- can boatmen at La Paz is to be believed it is still more ingenious in getting food, for, according to Pedro, the coyote fishes for crabs with its tail,--sticks its tail down the hole of the crab, the crab .bites, is pulled out and eaten. I would advise the reader to salt Pedr,,'s story. Still, it is possibly true. L. BELDING. Stockton, Cal. J.H. Bowles writes from Tacoma, Wash., that Western Evening Grosbeaks (Coccothraus- tes v. monlanus) are very numerous about the city, flocks of as many as forty birds being seen since Feb. I.
