soiled, rocky heights (and then only in exceptional years) where the former displays of color are to be seen. Evenso, there are still a few such places where, on hill-sides, huge fields of color show plainly even at distances as much as twenty miles away. But they are scarce and now becoming the inspiration for pilgrim- ges, and, on Sundays and holidays, some roads are almost blocked with traffic. For example: Last Sunday, the Ridge route from southern California into the upper end of the San Joaquin valley. Special police, guards, signs, Chambers of Commerce, forbidden areas, looting of fields and withered flowers scattered along the roads by motorists, highway equipment with scrapers and blasts of oil flame destroying the remaining narrow sheets of color on the shoulders of the roads to the bordering fences where the adjoin- ing property owners have not been able to reach with their plows; flocks of sheep pulling everything up by the roots in places where the flowers have had their first season of ample rainfall for years and are making their last stand. Etc., etc. March 31st. Another road- racer here? 11:20 A.M. Twice this morning I have thought I saw Rhody running away from me, only to find him in another place immediately afterward where he could not possibly have arrived in time. Just now I was sure I saw him 50 yards west of the west fence, skulking in the bushes. I turned east, when he would not come, and to my right, his rattle-boo sounded from an acacia. He was sitting, in what looked like a good place for a nest,"muttering". I wonder if he has really conjured up another road-runner. He has not been heard to sing this morning; possibly that is some evidence. I have thought, that, due to the scarcity of his kind in this locality, there was not the remotest possibility of his getting a mate. A little later R was not in sight anyplace. At 12:30 R was sitting quietly in his new "nest" location, and when he saw me, hopped from branch to branch to get nearer without my having shown him worms. He remained in the tree as I left. At 1:30 he climbed to the observatory tower and began to call. After this he went to the lot to the west and called from a tree there. He was silent during most of the rest of the afternoon. At what should have been his approximate bed-time, I went to his roost, but he was not there.