S2 Page 69

Collector: Grinnell - 1925
Location: Red Bluff to ]]Mineral]]
Date: July 6
Page Number: 2522

way from the edge of the yellow pines (3300 ft.,
about) to within the miles of Red Bluff. There
is a great deal of "speeding" on this road,
stretches of which are straight and finely
surfaced. As a result, numbers of Jack Rabbits
and Douglas Ground Squirrels are run down; and
these "remains" form a quite dependable food-
source for the Turkey Vultures, which evidently
patrol the highway regularly for these victims
of the auto. The mammal bodies are, of course,
as a rule conspicuous on the roadways, much
more so than in the chaparral or on the
lava "plains" elsewhere. This is a new manner
of draft on the mammalian population; a carefully
taken census over a given, average stretch of
road-way, would be significant in this
connection. There may have been compensation
already, however; for example, last winter, I
was told by one of the road men that he
and others kept steel traps going, for coyotes, ^^bob-cats,
and foxes, the pelts of which are so valuable.
I suppose that means a let-up on the draft of
carnivores upon those vegetarians.

Our trip down and back was unfavorable to
observing birds along the way. Mostly, when
we were stopping, nothing was to be heard;
the quiet season has arrived. The hearing
of call-notes of Slender-billed Nuthatches