THE CONDOR I VOL. VIII is almost always in a natural cavity of an oak or fir stub. tho an unusually large hole' made by a flicker is sometimes used. It is seldom at any great height from the ground, usually from ten to fifteen feet, and is generally only six or eight inches deep. An exception to this was in an oak stub where the entrance was only four feet up, the bottom of the cavity being but three inches above the level of the ground. No nesting material or lining of any kind is used, the eggs being deposited on the decayed wood at the bottom of the hole. The eggs are laid from the first t?) the second week in April, and are from two to four in number, four being most commonly found. They are pure white in color, a globular oval in shape, with a smooth, finely granulated and somewhat glossy shell. In size they seem exceedingly large for the size of the bird, altho this' is one of our largest screech owls. An average egg is as large as an average egg of the long-eared owl, tho the latter is,of course, a much larger bird. The largest egg in my collection measures 1.65xl.40 iuches, the smallest 1.48xl.27 inches, an average egg measuring 1.59xl.35 inches. After the young are partly grown it is most unusual to find either parent ou the nest, which makes it seem very possible that the old birds spend most of the day huutiug for food. This I know to be the case with the horned owls of eastern Washington. The young are generally quite lively when taken from the nest, and sometimes very much ou the defeusive. Daylight does not seem to bother them- in the least, for they stare at the intrnder in a most uncompromising manner. The nesting cavity aud the gronnd around it are kept scrupulously clean from first to last, and only rarely an occasional tell-tale bit of down at the entrance dis- closes the secret to the bird studeut. In Massachnsetts the male screech owl ahnost invariably has a roosting hole for himself not far from the uest occupied by the female. With our ?mrthwestern sub-species it is extremely doubtful' if this ever occurs; at least my nine years' ex- perience in Washington have shown uo evidence to that effect. 7?tcoma, ?Vttx/?i?tglo?t. Nesting of the Red-bellied Hawk BY C. S. SHARI '? HIS west-central part of San Diego county is especially favored by the pres- ence of the red-bellied h?wk (Iguteo lDzealus eleg'a?zs). The birds are not commonly seen near the coast, but in the interior valleys, where the river bottoms are more or less thickly lined with trees and scattering groves, we find them following the rivers up to about the base of the coast range. In these localities the species is a fairly common resident, seldom appearing in the higher enclosed valleys or in the mountainous regions, and their hunting range lies along the rivers and the adjoining fields and low-lying hills. The highest elevation at which I have found them is about 1350 feet, where a pair have for many years inhabited an oak grove on the edge of an open mesa. This is at the head of a steep ravine which runs up for a couple of miles from the river some 900 feet below. Both elevation and location, being so far away from the river bottom, are unusual. They do not appear to be an open country bird like the red-tail but seem to
