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86 THE CONDOR [ Vol. IV tailed by climbing up to all the holes seen in the dead pine trees and stumps. But.in most cases a blow with a rock or club against the stump is considered a sufficient test as to whether the tene- ment is occupied. So when I rapped at the base of a dead pine stump with a deserted white- headed woodpecker's hole near the top, and no sign of life appeared, I was about to move on, but the hole looked too promising and I decided to investi- gate further. Before starting to climb up the sixteen feet to the nest I stood on the hillside aboe the tree and threw a big rock against the top. The whole side split off down as far as the bottom of the hole and out flew a little owl, and perched on a fir tree a few yards away. We had no shot-gun but my companion carried a 4t-Colts, long barrel. I reached that and fired at the bird, missing of course. It flew across a canyon and perched high in another tree fifty or sixty yards away. I was disgusted and handed back the pistol hopelessly. But my friend had been in the habit of breaking glass bot- tles thrown into the air so he took the pistol and brought down the owl at long range the first shot. We then turned our attention to the stump and saw a suspicious mass of hair and fibre resting on what was left of the now exposed bottom of the hole. I shinned up the stump as carefully as possible for fear of shaking the nest loose. It was maJe of felted hair and fibre similar to the nest of a chickadee. In it were two nearly globular white eggs with incubation :ust begun. The bird was somewhat shot up by the 4I- caliber bullet but I preserved the skin and packed it away for future reference. It lay negtected till May ?897 when I sent it to Dr. C. Hart Merriam for ident- ification. He pronounced it the little flammulated screech owl (.3/eg'ascops flammeolus idahoensis). I have investi- gated nearly every deserted wookpeck- er's hole seen since then and rapped on many pine stumps but have seen no more of Megascops. Winter Plumage of the Black-tailed Gnatcatcher. BY H. S. SWARTH? N the few works containing any de- tailed account of the black-tailed gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica) but little information is to be found con- cerning the changes of plumage gone through by the male bird, the author usually contenting himself with the statement that the young male resem- bles the female. It is a bird, moreover, whose life history is, I think, known to but few ornithologists, and I doubt if any extensive series of specimens has been taken through the year, showing the changes of plumage undergone by the male. I was under the impression, ifs is, I believe, the general idea, that during the fall and winter months the two sexes were always indistinguish- able; and that the black cap, the dis- tinguishing mark of the male, was LOS ANGELES, CAL. acquired by moult during the early spring months. This may be true in part, but that it is invariably the rule is a mistake. I had taken many specimens between August and March showing no black on the head, with the exception of the al- most invisible black streak over the eye, which is, I believe, always present in 'the male; and others during March and April undergoing moult over the entire crown; so I .was the more sur- prised on taking on Dec. x3, ?9or, a male bird with the black cap nearly complete, though not quite as extensive as in most spring specimens, and with the black feathers tipped with the blue- gray color of the rest of the upper parts, so that the black was not appar- ent unless the feathers were ruffled. It