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 Mar., 1909 NOTES ON THE CALIFORNIA BLACK RAIL 49 point, where I failed to flush it again. I happened to have a charge of heavy shot in the other barrel and let it go. This is the only long flight I have seen and it reminded me of the flight of a water ouzel. The other two flights I have seen were short and rail-like. Last November I was camped in the valley of the Tijuana River near the last monument of the boundary between California and Mexico. The lad before men- tioned staid with me a few days and was accompanied by his pointer dog. We hunted the marshes several high tides but found but one California Black Rail. This flushed close to the boy's feet and was shot by him at very short range. He presented the skin to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and we now have three specimens there. The dog pointed several Clapper Rails (]?allus levpes) but failed to find the small species.. From my own observations and such information as I have been able to ob- tain from others I think that the California Black Rails are resident in the salt marshes along the coast of southern California, at least as a species; there may be a short individual migration but that remains to be proven. The nesting is prob- ably early, March and April. Sets number four to eight, probably seldom the larger number. The nests are hidden in the Salicornia near the highest tide line, a few inches from the ground, and are often merely a few dead bits of Salicornia drawn together and tramped into place. It is practically impossible to make a positive identification unless it proves practicable to trap the parent at the nest. The birds seem to lie very close and must be nearly stepped on before they will flush. I fancy that the species will be found fairly common in many local- ities when they are looked for carefully in the right places. San 29ieo, Cahfornia. AMONG THE THRASHERS IN ARIZONA By M. FRENCH GILMAN WITI-I ONE PHOTO BY THE AUTI-IOR HE territow in which the following notes were made lies in the Pima Indian Reservation along the Gila River. Observations covered a strip of country about twelve miles long by three miles wide, lying along the south side of the Gila. My two bases of operation were Blackwater, an Indian village of 1362 feet altitude, and Sacaton, where is located the Pima Agency and the Pima Train- ing School. Sacaton has an elevation of 1275 feet and the distance between it and Blackwater is about ten miles. Half a mile south of the Gila, and flowing parallel with it for about twenty miles is a small stream called the Little River. Along its banks are a few cotton- woods, many willows and much water-mote (t?accharisJulinosa). Between the two streams, on the "Island," as it is called, are groves of cottonwoods, and a few Arizona ash trees (Fraxinus velulina). In places not cleared and cultivated by the Indians, is a dense growth of mesquite (Prosopis velulina), screw-bean (P. odorala), and arrow-wood (Pluchea sericea), besides a number of scattered plants of squaw-berry ( Lyelure berlandieri) and jujube (Zizyphus lycioides). About three miles south of the Gila runs, parallel, a broken range of large hills or small mountains and on the intervening strip are many species of the cac- tus family: the sahuaro or Giant Cactus (Cereus giganleus), 20 to 35 feet high or