Page:Condor5(6).djvu/18

 Nov., 9o3 I THE CONDOR 53 latter were the crown sparrows and lark buntings, the male buntings already about half clothed in their striking summer plumage. Large trees were rather scarce on the divide and were not very large there except by comparison. They were principally isolated live oaks or black-jacks and most of them contained nests of the red-tailed hawk, usually old and deserted, but the new ones already contained either eggs or young birds. Of course all the hollow trees we saw had to be closely inspected and in one old stump we found a large pole cat peacefully taking his siestq. We had a good look at him but were very careful not to disturb his slumbers. He belonged to the white-backed, bare- nosed species and appeared to be very fat, also, fortunately for us, very sleepy. In the winter the Texan jays are generally in small parties of four or five individuals, family parties probably. In the winter of 896-897 when large num- bers of the common eastern blue jay (Cvanocitta cristata) visited us, and it was not uncommon to see flocks of from fifty to one hundred of them, our native jays did not mix with them but wandered about in their usual small flocks. These flocks, how- ever, were far more numerous than they have ever been since. Probably a heavy crop of shin oak acorns in this neighborhood and a failure of the mast in other places, attracted the birds of both species. have not seen the eastern jay here but once bet'ore; in 887 they were very plentiful. They remained until the mid- dle of April on both occasions. but none of them stayed here to breed. A List of Brds from the Santa Cruz Mountains, California BY MALCOLM P. ANDERSON AND HUBERT O. JENKINS URING the Christmas holidays of 9o-o3 the writers made a ten days trip from their homes in Santa Clara Valley, California, to the sea, a distance of twenty-five or thirty miles. At that time recent rains had made the moun- tain road very bad so our first day, and half of the second, was spent in reaching San Gregorio Creek, a stream on the western slope of the coast range. Here near the village of La Honda we camped several days on the bank of the stream in a deep cold canyon. This canyon runs east and west at this point, so the sun which rose to us about nine, lingered just above the crest of the southern mountain until near four in the afternoon. The northern slope of the canyon thus received some warmth, but the southern and densely wooded side, little or none. For this reason, no doubt, the upper parts of the northern side have been cleared and were then in use as pastureland while the original forest, except some of the largest redwoods has been preserved on the southern side. The most prominent forest tree in the neighborhood is the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), but many Douglas spruces (Pseudotsuga taxOColia) occur, and the undergrowth is very dense. This consists largely of several species of oaks (Quercus), the tan-bark oak (Quercus densijqora), the buckeye (Esculus californica) and the poison oak (fi?hus diversiloba). San Gregorio creek, like all streams of this portion of the coast range is lined with alders (/llnus oregarza), and the Cali- fornia laurel (fmbellularia californica)occurs on the banks as well as on the damp hillsides high above the stream. About two miles west of La Honda or eight miles from the coast the redwood forest ceases quite abruptly, giving place