mat about 2 or 3 feet thick through which the ground can not be seen from above. Through it pass innumerable small tunnels and trails used by the birds and rabbits. This mat is 15 or 20 feet long and about half as wide. By looking down into it I could see the parents, several wren-tits, the young thrashers and some others. At intervals other birds would enter to see what the trouble was. Amongst these were linnets, purple finches, wrens, bush tits. In the branches above one robin, Lawrence and Green-backed goldfinches, chipping sparrows and one or more hummingbirds collected. As I could dislodge nothing by prodding into the mass with a pole, I finally forced my way through it, lifting the tangled mass aside, but could find nothing, the outcry continuing, and the Towhees and wren-tits remaining in the mat, and a hummingbird buzzed about my ears once. I suppose it was a snake. The turmoil subsided in about a half an hour. Many of the young of various birds were present and toward the end a Black-headed Grosbeak approached but did not join the hunt, though probably attracted by the event. I have not seen either parent feed the young thrashers today and I have had plenty of opportunity. Also I have not seen Brownie off of the nest, unless it was she that attacked the young birds this morning. Julio tells me that when I was writing the foregoing paragraphs immediately after the disturbance, he was watering the garden and saw one of the young thrashers and a gopher snake in the road near the glade and that the thrasher pecked at the snake several times and walked away. The snake coiled but did not strike and did not retreat. Following our practise here, the snake was taken by the tail, carried off some distance and liberated. About 7 P.M. the glade was deserted by the thrashers, the food dish being empty. Search disclosed all three young birds hunting