engaged elsewhere and away from this place. April 29th. Up to about 10:30 A.M. Rhody had not been seen. I left to return about noon. Still away. Left about 2 P.M., returning about 3:30. R not to be found. I sat by the cage to watch for his expected visit to the magpies, but he did not appear. I went to nest 8-37 at 4:15, not expecting to find him, but there he was, lying in it peacefully. He cried when I spoke to him and then began poke at the interior aimlessly with his bill. He did not come down when I walked away, but when I passed the nest a few minutes later, he followed to the tool-house for a mouse, then carried the mouse back to the nest with ritual after having made a complete circuit of the house. Going back at 5:40, I found him on the ground below the nest. He followed me to the oval lawn, but no farther. There he became interested in watching the birds: quail, brown towhees, plain tit- mice, linnets, Nuttall sparrows and bushtits that happened to be active and fairly numerous in the vicinity at the time. He sud- denly crouched, turned his head on one side to gaze up into the big oak by the front steps. A Steller jay then squawked from that tree and Rhody instantly flew up into it as if he recognized the jay as a hereditary enemy, as perhaps he is. The jay left quickly, but R spent several minutes studying the inside of the tree, which is very open. Though there were other birds there, he made no hostil move towards them. On leaving he dropped to the ground, then made his way to the side gate--not on the ground--but via the branches of trees--a mode of progression not commonly adopted by him. April 30th. Rhody was again absent most of the day; not being seen between 7:45 A.M. and 4:50 P.M., although frequently looked for both here and over a considerable area to the north and east. At 4:50 I came upon him under a pine tree near the north fence as I was stalking a hawk (Sharpshinned?) that had just caught a bird in the garden and flown off with it. Rhody was holding a snake in his bill and was in a semi-frozen state due to the yelling and shriking of about a dozen little girls 150 yards to the west. He did not thaw for 35 minutes; he then began to beat the snake upon the ground following a prelim- inary bow with hrooing and tail-wagging, but was still afraid of the children. The snake, 18 to 20 inches long--a yellow-bellied racer--was still alive as Rhody came over the fence with it on a slow, intermittent march which lead him to the ladder tree at 5:40. On the way he hesitated at the base of the 8-37 nest tree, but did not go up. He passed out the side gate and offered the snake at the hub-caps of two cars in front of the Scamells' say- ing coot, coot, coot. At the ladder tree, for the first time, he was seen to retreat from his last position instead of making the leap across. This happened three times: once when 5 of the little girls passed on the street below, again when they returned in the opposite direction and again when another outburst of shrieks coincided in time with his crouching for the take-off. During a lull in the shrill clamor he made his fourth approach to the end of the branch, waited there a minute or two, then jumped to the roost tree (6:26 1/2 P.M. Sunset 6:59) took the snake to the house-nest and downed in 10 or 15 seconds--a rather speedy per- formance.