Transcriber's Note: Although a few of the drawings say "One half size", these drawings have been increased in size for this HTML edition to allow better viewing of detail.

Books by Florence A. Merriam.

BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. In Riverside Library for Young People. Illustrated. 16mo, 75 cents.

MY SUMMER IN A MORMON VILLAGE. 16mo, $1.00.

A-BIRDING ON A BRONCO. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25.

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston and New York.

MOUNTAIN BILLY UNDER THE GNATCATCHER'S OAK

A-BIRDING ON A BRONCO

BY

FLORENCE A. MERRIAM

I do invite you ... to my house ...
after, we'll a-birding together.
Shakespeare.

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1896

Copyright, 1896,
By FLORENCE A. MERRIAM.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The notes contained in this book were taken from March to May, 1889, and from March to July, 1894, at Twin Oaks in southern California. Twin Oaks is the post-office for the scattered ranch-houses in a small valley at the foot of one of the Coast Ranges, thirty-four miles north of San Diego, and twelve miles from the Pacific.

As no collecting was done, there is doubt about the identity of a few species; and their names are left blank or questioned in the list of birds referred to in the text. In cases where the plumage of the two sexes is practically identical, and only slight mention is made of the species, the sexes have sometimes been arbitrarily distinguished in the text.

Several of the articles have appeared before, in somewhat different form, in 'The Auk,' 'The Observer,' and 'Our Animal Friends;' all the others are published here for the first time.

The illustrations are from drawings of birds and nests by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and from photographs taken in the valley; together with some of eucalyptus-trees from Los Angeles, for the use of which I am indebted to the courtesy of Dr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Division of Forestry of the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

In the preparation of the book I have been kindly assisted by Miss Isabel Eaton, and have received from my brother, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, untiring criticism and advice.

FLORENCE A. MERRIAM.

Locust Grove, N. Y.,
July 15, 1896.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

BIRDS REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT.[1]

A-BIRDING ON A BRONCO.

I.

OUR VALLEY.

"Climb the mountain back of the house and you can see the Pacific," the ranchman told me with a gleam in his eye; and later, when I had done that, from the top of a peak at the foot of the valley he pointed out the distant blue mountains of Mexico. Then he gave me his daughter's saddle horse to use as long as I was his guest, that I might explore the valley and study its birds to the best advantage. Before coming to California, I had known only the birds of New York and Massachusetts, and so was filled with eager enthusiasm at thought of spending the migration and nesting season in a new bird world.

I had no gun, but was armed with opera-glass and note-book, and had Ridgway's Manual to turn to in all my perplexities. Every morning, right after breakfast, my horse was brought to the door and I set out to make the rounds of the valley. I rode till dinner time, getting acquainted with the migrants as they came from the south, and calling at the more distant nests on the way. After dinner I would take my camp-stool and stroll, through the oaks at the head of the valley, for a quiet study of the nearer nests. Then once more my horse would be brought up for me to take a run before sunset; and at night I would identify my new birds and write up the notes of the day. What more could observer crave? The world was mine. I never spent a happier spring. The freedom and novelty of ranch life and the exhilaration of days spent in the saddle gave added zest to the delights of a new fauna. In my small valley circuit of a mile and a half, I made the acquaintance of about seventy-five birds, and without resort to the gun was able to name fifty-six of them.

My saddle horse, a white bronco who went by the musical name of Canello, had been broken by a Mexican whose cruelty had tamed the wild blood in his veins and left him with a fear of all swarthy skins. Now he could be ridden bareback by the little girls, with only a rope noose around his nose, and was warranted to stand still before a flock of birds so long as there was grass to eat. He was to be relied on as a horse of ripe, experience and mature judgment in matters of local danger. No power of bit or spur could induce him to set foot upon a piece of 'boggy land,' and to give me confidence one of the ranchman's sons said, "Wherever I've killed a rattlesnake from him he'll shy for years;" and went on to cite localities where a sudden, violent lurch had nearly sent him over Canello's head! What greater recommendation could I wish?

If the old horse had had any wayward impulses left, his Mexican bit would have subdued them. It would be impossible to use such an iron in the mouth of an eastern horse. They say the Mexicans sometimes break horses' jaws with it. From the middle of the bit, a flat bar of iron, three quarters of an inch wide, extended back four inches, lying on the horse's tongue or sticking into the roof of his mouth, according to the use of the curb—there was no other rein. The bit alone weighed sixteen ounces. The bridle, which came from Enseñada in Lower California, then the seat of a great gold excitement, was made of braided raw-hide. It was all hand work; there was not a buckle about it. The leather quirt at the end of the reins was the only whip necessary. When I left the ranch the bridle was presented to me, and it now hangs behind my study door, a proud trophy of my western life, and one that is looked upon with mingled admiration and horror by eastern horsemen.

Canello and I soon became the best of friends. I found in him a valuable second—for, as I had anticipated, the birds were used to grazing horses, and were much less suspicious of an equestrian than a foot passenger—and he found in me a movable stake, constantly leading him to new grazing ground; for when there was a nest to watch I simply hung the bridle over the pommel and let him eat, so getting free hands for opera-glass and note-book. To be sure, there were slight causes of difference between us. He liked to watch birds in the high alfalfa under the sycamores, but when it came to standing still where the hot sun beat down through the brush and there was nothing to eat, his interest in ornithology flagged perceptibly. Then he sometimes carried the rôle of grazing horse too far, marching off to a fresh clump of grass out of sight of my nest at the most interesting moment; or when I was intently gazing through my glass at a rare bird, he would sometimes give a sudden kick at a horsefly, bobbing the glass out of range just as I was making out the character of the wing-bars.

OUR VALLEY

From the ranch-house, encircled by live-oaks, the valley widened out, and was covered with orchards and vineyards, inclosed by the low brush-grown ridges of the Coast Mountains. It was a veritable paradise for the indolent field student. With so much insect-producing verdure, birds were everywhere at all times. There were no long hours to sit waiting on a camp-stool, and only here and there a treetop to 'sky' the wandering birds. The only difficulty was to choose your intimates.

Canello and I had our regular beat, down past the blooming quince and apricot orchard, along the brush-covered side of the valley where the migrants flocked, around the circle through a great vineyard in the middle of the valley, past a pond where the feathered settlers gathered to bathe, and so back home to the oaks again.

I liked to start out in the freshness of the morning, when the fog was breaking up into buff clouds over the mountains and drawing off in veils over the peaks. The brush we passed through was full of glistening spiders' webs, and in the open the grass was overlaid with disks of cobweb, flashing rainbow colors in the sun.

As we loped gayly along down the curving road, a startled quail would call out, "Who-are-you'-ah? who-are-you'-ah?" and another would cry "quit" in sharp warning tones; while a pair would scud across the road like little hens, ahead of the horse; or perhaps a covey would start up and whirr over the hillside. The sound of Canello's flying hoofs would often rouse a long-eared jack-rabbit, who with long leaps would go bounding over the flowers, to disappear in the brush.

The narrow road wound through the dense bushy undergrowth known as 'chaparral,' and as Canello galloped round the sharp curves I had to bend low under the sweeping branches, keeping alert for birds and animals, as well as Mexicans and Indians that we might meet.

This corner of the valley was the mouth of Twin Oaks Canyon, and was a forest of brush, alive with birds, and visited only by the children whose small schoolhouse stood beside the giant twin oak from which the valley post-office was named. Flocks of migrating warblers were always to be found here; flycatchers shot out at passing insects; chewinks scratched among the dead leaves and flew up to sing on the branches; insistent vireos cried tu-whip' tu-whip' tu-whip' tu-wee'-ah, coming out in sight for a moment only to go hunting back into the impenetrable chaparral; lazuli buntings sang their musical round; blue jays—blue squawkers, as they are here called—went screaming harshly through the thicket; and the clear ringing voice of the wren-tit ran down the scale, now in the brush, now echoing from the bowlder-strewn hills above. But the king of the chaparral was the great brown thrasher. His loud rollicking song and careless independent ways, so suggestive of his cousin, the mockingbird, made him always a marked figure.

There was one dense corner of the thicket where a thrasher lived, and I used to urge Canello through the tangle almost every morning for the pleasure of sharing his good spirits. He was not hard to find, big brown bird that he was, standing on the top of a bush as he shouted out boisterously, kick'-it-now, kick'-it-now, shut'-up shut'-up, dor'-a-thy dor'-a-thy; or, calling a halt in his mad rhapsody, slowly drawled out, whoa'-now, whoa'-now. After listening to such a tirade as this, it was pleasant to come to an opening in the brush and find a band of gentle yellow-birds leaning over the blossoms of the white forget-me-nots.

There were a great many hummingbirds in the chaparral, and at a certain point on the road I was several times attacked by one of the pugnacious little warriors. I suppose we were treading too near his nest, though I was not keen-eyed enough to find it. From high in the air, he would come with a whirr, swooping down so close over our heads that Canello started uneasily and wanted to get out of the way. Down over our heads, and then high up in the air, he would swing back and forth in an arc. One day he must have shot at us half a dozen times, and another day, over a spot in the brush near us,—probably, where the nest was,—he did the same thing a dozen times in quick succession.

In the midst of the brush corner were a number of pretty round oaks, in one of which the warblers gathered. My favorite tree was in blossom and alive with buzzing insects, which may have accounted for the presence of the warblers. While I sat in the saddle watching the dainty birds decked out in black and gold, Canello rested his nose in the cleft of the tree, quite unmindful of the busy warblers that flitted about the branches, darting up for insects or chasing down by his nose after falling millers.

One morning the ranchman's little girl rode over to school behind me on Canello, pillion fashion. As we pushed through the brush and into the opening by the schoolhouse, scattered over the grass sat a flock of handsome black-headed grosbeaks, the western representative of the eastern rose-breast, looking, in the sun, almost as red as robins. They had probably come from the south the night before. As we watched, they dispersed and sang sweetly in the oaks and brush.

In the giant twin oak under whose shadow the the little schoolhouse stood was an owl's nest. When I stopped under it, nothing was to be seen but the tips of the ears of the brooding bird. But when I tried to hoot after the manner of owls, the angry old crone rose up on her feet above the nest till I could see her round yellow eyes and the full length of her long ears. She snapped her bill fiercely, bristled up, puffing out her feathers and shaking them at us threateningly. Poor old bird! I was amused at her performances, but one of her little birds lay dead at the foot of the tree, and I trembled for the others, for the school-children were near neighbors. Surely the old bird needed all her devices to protect her young. One day I saw on one side of the nest, below the big ears of the mother, the round head of a nestling.

It was pleasant to leave the road to ride out under the oaks along the way. There was always the delightful feeling that one might see a new bird or find some little friend just gone to housekeeping. One morning I discovered a bit of a wren under an oak with building material in her bill. She flew down to a box that lay under the tree and I dismounted to investigate. A tin can lay on its side in the box, and a few twigs and yellowish brown oak leaves were scattered about in a casual way, but the rusted lid of the can was half turned back, and well out of sight in the inside was a pretty round nest with one egg in it. I was delighted,—such an appropriate place for a wren's nest,—and sat down for her to come back. She was startled to find me there, and stopped on the edge of the board when just ready to jump down. She would have made a pretty picture as she stood hesitating, with her tail over her back, for the sun lit up her gray breast till it almost glistened and warmed her pretty brown head as she looked wistfully down at the box. After twisting and turning she went off to think the matter over, and, encouraged perhaps by my whistle, came back and hopped down into the little nest.

Two weeks later I was much grieved to find that the nest had been broken up. A horse had been staked under the tree, but he could not have done the mischief; for while the eggs were there, the nest itself was all jumbled up in the mouth of the can. I could not get it out of my mind for days. You become so much interested in the families you are watching that you feel as if their troubles were yours, and are haunted by the fear that they will think you have something to do with their accidents. They had taken me on probation at first, and at last had come to trust me—and then to imagine that I could deceive them and do the harm myself!

When Canello and I left the brushy side of the canyon and started across the valley, the pretty little horned larks, whose reddish backs matched the color of the road, would run on ahead of us, or let the horses come within a few feet of them, squatting down ready to start, but not taking wing till it seemed as if they would get stepped on. Sometimes one sat on a stone by the roadside, so busy singing its thin chattering song that it only flitted on to the next stone as we came up; for it never seemed to occur to the trustful birds that passers-by might harm them.

One of our most interesting birds nested in holes in the open uncultivated fields down the valley,—the burrowing owl, known popularly, though falsely, as the bird who shares its nest with prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. Though they do not share their quarters with their neighbors, they have large families of their own. We once passed a burrow around which nine owls were sitting. The children of the ranchman called the birds the 'how-do-you-do owls,' from the way they bow their heads as people pass. The owls believe in facing the enemy, and the Mexicans say they will twist their heads off if you go round them times enough.

One of our neighbors milked his cows out in a field where the burrowing owls had a nest, and he told me that his collie had nightly battles with the birds. I rode down one evening to see the droll performance, and getting there ahead of the milkers found the bare knoll of the pasture peopled with ground squirrels and owls. The squirrels sat with heads sticking out of their holes, or else stood up outside on their hind legs, with the sun on their light breasts, looking, as Mr. Roosevelt says, like 'picket pins.' The little old yellowish owls who matched the color of the pasture sat on the fence posts, while the darker colored young ones sat close by their holes, matching the color of the earth they lived in. As I watched, one of the old birds flew down to feed its young. A comical little fellow ran up to meet his parent and then scudded back to the nest hole, keeping low to the ground as if afraid of being seen, or of disobeying his mother's commands. When the ranchman came with his cows the small owls ducked down into their burrows out of sight.

Romulus, the collie, went up to the burrows and the old owls came swooping over his back screaming shrilly—the milkers told me that they often struck him so violently they nipped more than his hair! When the owls flew at him, Romulus would jump up into the air at them, and when they had settled back on the fence posts he would run up and start them off again. The performance had been repeated every night through the nesting season, and was getting to be rather an old story now, at least to Romulus. The ranchman had to urge him on for my benefit, and the owls acted as if they rather enjoyed the sport, though with them there was always the possibility that a reckless nestling might pop up its head from the ground at the wrong moment and come to grief. It would be interesting to know if the owls were really disturbed enough to move their nest another year.

When Canello and I faced home on our daily circuit of the valley, we often found the vineyard well peopled. In April, when it was being cultivated, there was a busy scene. All the blackbirds of the neighborhood—both Brewer's and redwings—assembled to pick up grubs from the soft earth. A squad of them followed close at the plowman's heels, others flew up before his horse, while those that lagged behind in their hunt were constantly flying ahead to catch up, and those that had eaten all they could sat around on the neighboring grape-vines. The ranchman's son told me that when he was plowing and the blackbirds were following him, two or three 'bee-birds,' as they call the Arkansas and Cassin's flycatchers, would take up positions on stakes overlooking the flock; and when one of the blackbirds got a worm, would fly down and chase after him till they got it away, regularly making their living from the blackbirds, as the eagles do from the fish hawks.

In Hot Pursuit.
(Brewer's Blackbird and Bee-birds.)

One day in riding by the vineyard, to my surprise and delight I saw one of the handsome yellow-headed blackbirds sitting with dignity on a grape-vine. Although his fellows often flock with redwings, this bird did not deign to follow the cultivator with the others, but flew off and away while I was watching, showing his striking white shoulder patches as he went. The distinguished birds were sometimes seen assembled farther down the valley; and I once had a rare pleasure in seeing a company of them perched high on the blooming mustard.

The son of the ranchman told me an interesting thing about the ordinary blackbirds. He said he had seen a flock of perhaps five hundred fly down toward a band of grazing sheep, and all but a few of the birds light on the backs of sheep. The animals did not seem to mind, and the birds flew from one to another and roosted and rode to their heart's content. They would drop to the ground, but if anything startled them, fly back to their sheep again. Sometimes he had seen a few of the blackbirds picking out wool for their nests by bracing themselves on the backs of the sheep, and pulling where the wool was loose. He had also seen the birds ride hogs, cattle, and horses; but he said the horses usually switched them off with their tails.

On our way home we passed a small pond made by the spring rains. Since it was the only body of water for miles around, it was especially refreshing to us, and was the rendezvous of all our feathered neighbors—how they must have wished it would last all through the hot summer months! As I rode through the long grass on the edge of the pond, dark water snakes often wriggled away from under Canello's feet; but he evidently knew they were harmless, for he paid no attention to them, though he was mortally afraid of rattlers. I did not like the feeling that any snake, however innocent, was under my feet, so would pull him up out of the grass onto a flat rock overlooking the pond.

In the fresh part of the morning, before the fog had entirely melted away, the round pool at our feet mirrored the blue sky and the small white clouds. If a breath of wind ruffled the water into lines, in a moment more it was sparkling. Along the margin of the water was a border of wild flowers, pink, purple, and gold; on one side stood a group of sycamores, their twisted trunks white in the morning sun and their branches full of singing birds; while away to the south a line of dark blue undulating hills was crowned by the peak from which we had looked off on the mountains of Mexico. The air was ringing with songs, the sycamores were noisy with the chatter of blackbirds and bee-birds, and the bushes were full of sparrows.

There was an elder on the edge of the pond, and the bathers flew to this and then flitted down to the water; and when they flew up afterwards, lighted there to whip the water out of their feathers and sun themselves before flying off. I never tired watching the little bathers on the beach. One morning a pipit came tipping and tilting along the sand, peeping in its wild, sad way. Another time a rosy-breasted linnet stepped to the edge of the pond and dipped down daintily where the water glistened in the sunshine, sending a delicate circle rippling off from its own shadow. Then the handsome white and golden-crowned sparrows came and bathed in adjoining pools. When one set of birds had flown off to dry their feathers, others took their places. A pair of blackbirds walked down the sand beach, but acted absurdly, as if they did not know what to do in water—it was a wonder any of the birds did in dry California! Two pieces of wood lay in the shallows, and the blackbirds flew to them and began to promenade. The female tilted her tail as if the sight of herself in the pond made her dizzy, but the male finally edged down gingerly and took a dip or two with his bill, after which both flew off.

On the mud flats on one side of the pond, bee-birds were busy flycatching, perching on sticks near the ground and making short sallies over the flat. Turtle doves flew swiftly past, and high over head hawks and buzzards circled and let themselves be borne by the wind.

Swallows came to the pond to get mud for their nests. A long line of them would light on the edge of the water, and then, as if afraid of wetting their feet, would hold themselves up by fluttering their long pointed wings. They would get a little mud, take a turn in the air, and come back for more, to make enough to pay them for their long journeys from their nests. Sometimes they would skim over the pond without touching the surface at all, or merely dip in lightly for a drink in passing; at others they would take a flying plunge with an audible splash. Now and then great flocks of them could be seen circling around high up against a background of clouds and blue sky.

One day I had a genuine excitement in seeing a snow-white egret perched on a bush by the water. I rode home full of the beautiful sight, but alas, my story was the signal for the ranchman's son to seize his gun and rush after the bird. Fortunately he did not find him, although he did shoot a green heron; but it was probably a short reprieve for the poor hunted creature.

Canello was so afraid of miring in the soft ground that it was hard to get him across some places that seemed quite innocent. He would test the suspicious ground as carefully as a woman, one foot at a time; and if he judged it dangerous, would take the bits, turn around and march off in the opposite direction. I tried to force him over at first, but had an experience one day that made me quite ready to take all suggestions in such matters. This time he was deceived himself. We were on our homeward beat, off in the brush beyond the vineyard. I was watching for chewinks. We came to what looked like an old road grown up with soft green grass, and it was so fresh and tender I let Canello graze along at will; while keeping my eyes on the brush for chewinks. Suddenly Canello pricked up his ears and raised his head with a look of terror. Rattlesnakes or miring—it was surely one or the other! When I felt myself sinking, I knew which. I gave the horse a cut with the quirt to make him spring off the boggy ground, and looked off over his side to see how far down he was likely to go, but found myself going down backwards so fast I had to cling to the pommel. I lashed Canello to urge him out, and he struggled desperately, but it was no use. We were sinking in deeper and deeper, and I had to get off to relieve him of my weight. By this time his long legs had sunk in up to his body. On touching the ground I had a horrible moment thinking it might not hold me; but it bore well. Seizing the bridle with one hand and swinging the quirt with the other, I shouted encouragement to Canello, and, straining and struggling, he finally wrenched himself out and stepped on terra firma—I never appreciated the force of that expression before! The poor horse was trembling and exhausted when I led him up to high ground to remount, and neither of us had any desire to explore boggy lands after that.

On our morning round, Canello and I attended strictly to business,—he to grazing, I to observing; but on our afternoon rides I, at least, felt that we might pay a little more heed to the beauties of the valley and the joys of horsebacking. Sometimes we would be overtaken by the night fog. One moment the mustard would be all aglow with sunshine; at the next, a sullen bank of gray fog would have risen over the mountain, obscuring the sun which had warmed us and lighted the mustard; and in a few moments it would be so cold and damp that I would urge Canello into a lope to warm our blood as we hurried home.

II.

THE LITTLE LOVER.

The Little Lover.
(Western House Wren.)

On my second visit to California, I spent the winter in the Santa Clara valley, riding among the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, where flocks of Oregon robins were resting from the labors of the summer and passing the time until they could fly home again; but when the first spring wild flowers bloomed on the hills I shipped my little roan mustang by steamer from San Francisco to San Diego, and hurried south to meet him and spend the nesting season in the little valley of the Coast Mountains which, five years before, had proved such an ideal place to study birds.

I went down early in March, to be sure to be in time for the nesting season; but spring was so late that by the last of April hardly a nest had been built, and it seemed as if the birds were never coming back. The weather was gloomy and the prospect for the spring's work looked discouraging, when one morning I rode over to the line of oaks and sycamores at the mouth of Ughland canyon I had not visited before. In this dry, treeless region of southern California only a little water is needed to cover the bare valley bottoms with verdure. The rushing streams that flow down the canyons after the winter rains fill their mouths with rich groves of brush, oaks and sycamores; while lines of trees border the streams as far as they extend down the valleys. Before the streams go far, the thirsty soil drinks them up, leaving only dry beds of sand bordered by trees, until the rains of the following winter. In April, the water in this particular canyon mouth had already disappeared, and the wide sand bed under the trees alone remained to tell of the short-lived stream. But the resulting verdure was enough to attract the birds. Apparently a party of travelers had just arrived. The brush and trees were full of song—yellowbirds, linnets, chewinks, doves, wrens, and, best of all, a song sparrow,—bless his heart!—singing as if he were on a bush in New York state. It was more cheering than anything I had heard in California.

When able to listen to something besides song sparrows, I realized that from the trees in front of me was coming the rippling merry song of a wren. Wrens are always interesting,—droll, individual little scraps,—and having found their nests in sycamore holes before, I let my horse, Mountain Billy, graze nearer to the tree from which the sound came. Before long the small brown pair flew away together across the oat field that spread out from the mouth of the canyon. While they were gone, I took the opportunity to inspect the tree, and found a large hole with twigs sticking out suggestively. Presently, back flew one of the wrens with more building material. But this line of sycamores was off from the highway, and the bird was not used to prying equestrians; so when she found Mountain Billy and me planted in front of her door, she doubted the wisdom of showing us that it was her door. Chattering nervously, she would back and fill, flying all but to the door and then flitting off again. She could not make up her mind to go inside. But soon her mate came and—unmindful of visitors, ardent little lover that he was—sang to her so gayly that it put her in heart; and before I knew it she had slipped into the tree.

Here was a nest, at last, right over my eye. To encourage myself while waiting for something to happen, I began a list with the heading NESTS, when something caught my eye overhead, and glancing up, behold, a goldfinch walked down a branch and seated herself in a round cup! A few moments later—buzz—whirr—a hummingbird flew to a nest among the brown leaves of one of the low-hanging oak sprays not ten feet away! I simply stared with delight and astonishment. No need of a list for encouragement now. From Billy's back I could look down into the little cup, which seemed the tiniest in the world. Forgetting the little lover and his mate, I sat still and watched this small household.

The young were out of the eggs, though not much more, and their mother sat on the edge of the nest feeding them. She curved her neck over till her long bill stood up perpendicularly, when she put it gently into the gaping bills of her young; the smallest of bills, not more than an eighth of an inch long, I should judge. I never saw hummingbirds fed so gently. Probably the small bills and throats were so delicate the mother was afraid they would not bear the usual jabbing and pumping.

When the little ones were fed, the old bird got down in the nest, fluffing her feathers about her in a pretty motherly way and settling herself comfortably to rest, apparently ignoring the fact that Billy was grazing close beside her. She may have had her qualms, but no mother bird would leave her tender young uncovered on such a cold morning.

While she was on the nest, there was an approaching whirr, followed by a retreating buzz—had the father bird started to come to the nest and fled at sight of me? Remembering the evidence Bradford Torrey collected to prove that the male bird is rarely seen at the nest, I wondered if his absence might be explained by his usually noisy flight, for it would attract the notice of man or beast.

Two days later I carefully touched the tip of my finger to the back of one of the tiny hummingbirds,—it was very skinny, I regret to state,—and at my touch the little thing opened its wee bill for food. That day the mother fed the birds in the regulation way, when we were only four feet distant. I was near enough to see all the horrors of the performance. She thrust her bill down their throats till I felt like crying out, "For mercy's sake, forbear!" She plunged it in up to the very hilt; it seemed as if she must puncture their alimentary canals.

While waiting for the wrens, I buckled Billy's bridle around the sycamore and threw myself down on the warm sand under the beautiful tree. The little horse stood near, outlined against the blue sky, with the sunlight dappling his back, while I looked up into the light green foliage of the white sycamore overhead. There seemed to be a great deal of light stored in these delicate trees. The undersides of the big, soft, white leaves looked like white Canton flannel; the sunlight mottled the whitish bark of the trunks and branches; and a great limb arched above me, making a high vaulted chamber whose skylights showed the deep blue above.

But there were the little lover and his mate, and I must turn my glass on them. She came first, with long streamers hanging from her bill, and at sight of me got so flustered that one of her straws slipped out and went sailing down to the ground. When the pair had gone again, two linnets came along. The female saw the wren's doorway, and being in search of apartments flew up to look at the house. When she came out she and her mate talked it over and, apparently, she told him something that aroused his curiosity—perhaps about the wren's twigs she found inside—for he flew into the dark hole and looked around as she had done. Then both birds went off to inspect other holes in the tree. The master of the wren cottage came back in time to see them on their rounds, and taking up his position in front of his door sang out loudly, with wings hanging and a general air of, "This is my house, I'd have you understand!"

When the lord of the manor had flown away, his lady came. I thought perhaps he had told her of the visitors and she had come to see if they had disturbed any of her sticks, for she brought no material. She was afraid to go to the nest in my presence, but flew to a branch near by and leaned down so far it was a wonder she didn't tip over as she stared anxiously at the hole—a bad way to keep a secret, my little lady! I thought. When her merry minstrel came, his song again gave her courage and she flew inside, turning in the doorway, however, to look out at me.

But what with horses grazing under her windows and linnets making free with her nest, the poor wren was unsettled in her mind. Possibly it would be wiser to take out her sticks and build elsewhere. She went about looking at vacant rooms and examined one opening in the side of the trunk where I could see only her profile as she hung out of the hole.

For some time the timid bird would not accept Mountain Billy and me as part of her immediate landscape, and I watched the premises a number of days, getting nothing but my labor for my pains, as far as wrens were concerned.

One day when she did not come, I thought it was a good chance to get a study of the hummingbird's nest; but alas!—the delicate little structure hung torn and dangling from the twig, with nothing to tell what had become of the poor little hummers. I moralized sadly upon the mutability of human affairs as I took the tattered nest and tied it up in a corner of my handkerchief; for it was all that was left of the little home built with such exquisite care and brooded over so tenderly.

The yellowbird's nest came to an untimely end, too, although its start was such a bright one. It was a disappointment, for the goldfinches are such trustful birds and so affectionate and tender in their family relations that they always win one's warm interest. At first, when this mother bird went to the nest, her mate stationed himself on the nest tree, leaning over and looking down anxiously at Billy and me; but before their home was broken up the watchful guardian fed his pretty mate at her brooding when we were below.

We had a great many visitors while waiting for the wrens: neighbors came to sit in our green shade, young housekeepers came looking for rooms to rent, and old birds who were leading around their noisy families came to dine with us. Once a pair of flickers started to light in the tree, but they gave a glance over the shoulder at me and fled. Later I found their secret—down inside an old charred stump up the canyon. Occasionally I got sight of gay liveries in the green sycamore tops. A Louisiana tanager in his coat of many colors stopped one day, and another time, when looking up for dull green vireos, my eye was startled by a flaming golden oriole. The color was a keen pleasure. Lazuli buntings, relatives of our eastern indigo-bird, sang so much within hearing that I felt sure they were nesting in the weeds outside the line of sycamores—I did find a pair building in the malvas beyond; a pair of bush-tits, cousins of the chickadees, came with one of their big families; California towhees often appeared sitting quietly on the branches; linnets were always stopping to discuss something in their emphatic way; clamorous blue jays rushed in and set the small birds in a panic, but seeing me quickly took themselves off; and a pair of wary woodpeckers hunted over the sycamore trunks and worked so cautiously that they had finished excavating a nest only just out of my sight on the other side of the wren tree trunk before I seriously suspected them of domestic intentions.

One day, when watching at the tree, a great brown and black lizard that the children of the valley call the 'Jerusalem overtaker' came worming down the side of an oak that I often leaned against. The rough bark seemed such a help to it that I imagined the wrens had done wisely in choosing a smooth sycamore to build in. I looked narrowly at their nest hole with the thought in mind and saw that the birds had another point of vantage in the way the trunk bulged at the hole—it did not seem as if a large lizard could work itself up the smooth slippery rounding surface, however much given to eggs for breakfast. But in the West Indies lizards walk freely up and down the marble slabs, so it is dangerous to say what they cannot do.

Billy had a surprise one day greater than mine over the lizard. He was grazing quietly near where I sat under the wren tree, when he suddenly threw up his head. His ears pointed forward, his eyes grew excited, and as he gazed his head rose higher and higher. I jumped from the ground and put my hand on the pommel ready to spring into the saddle. As I did so, across the field I caught a glimpse of a great fawn-colored animal with a white tip to its tail, bounding through the brush—a deer! Then I heard voices through the trees and saw the red shawl of a woman in a wagon rumbling up the road the deer must have crossed.

When Mountain Billy and I pulled ourselves together and started after the deer, the poor horse was so unstrung he made snakes of all the sticks he saw and shied at all imaginable bugaboos along the way. We were too late to see the deer again, but found the marks of its hoofs where it had jumped a ditch and sunk so deep in the fine sand on the other side that it had to take a great leap to recover itself.

The sight of the deer made Billy as nervous as a witch for days. Every time we went to visit the wrens he would stand with eyes glued to the spot where it had appeared, and when a jack-rabbit came out of the brush with his long ears up, Billy started as if he thought it would devour him. I was perplexed by his nervousness at first, but after much pondering reasoned it out, to my own satisfaction at least. His name was Mountain Billy, and in the days when he had been a wayward bucking mustang he lived in the Sierra. Now, even in the hills surrounding our valley, colts were killed by mountain lions. How much more in the Sierra. Mountain lions are large fawn-colored animals: that was it: Mountain Billy was suffering from an acute attack of association of ideas. The sight of the deer had awakened memories of the nightmare of his colthood days.

We made frequent visits to the wren tree, and both my nervous little horse and I had a start one morning, for as we rode in, a covey of quail flew up with a whirr from under the tree in front of us.

When the wren had become reconciled to us she worked rapidly, flying back and forth with material, followed by her mate, who sang while she was on the nest and chased away with her afterwards. Often when she appeared in the doorway ready to go, his song, which had been just a merry round before, at sight of her would suddenly change to a most ecstatic love song. He would sit with drooping tail, his wings sometimes shaking at his sides, at others raised till they almost met over his back, trembling with the excitement of his joy. This peculiar tremulous motion of the wings was marked in both wrens; their emotions seemed too large for their small bodies.

I found the wrens building, the last of April. The third week in May the little lover was singing as hard as ever. I wrote in my note-book—"Wrens do not take life with proper seriousness, their duties certainly do not tie them down." When the eggs were in the nest, if her mate sang at her door, the mother bird would fly out to him and away they would go together; for it never seemed to occur to the care-free lover that he might brood the eggs in her absence.

When the young hatched, however, affairs took a more serious turn. Mother wren at least was kept busy looking for spiders, and later, when both were working together, if not hunting among the green treetops, the pretty little brown birds often flew to the ground and ran about under the weeds to search for insects. Once when the mother bird had flown up with her bill full, she suddenly stopped at the twig in front of the nest, looking down, her tail over her back wren fashion, the sun on her brown sides, and her bill bristling with spiders' legs.

A Trying Moment.

On June 7 I noticed a remarkable thing. For more than five weeks, all through the building and brooding, the little lover had been acting as if on his honeymoon—as if the nest were a joke and there were nothing for him to do in the world but sing and make love to his pretty mate—as if life were all 'a-courtin'.' On this day he first came to the tree with food, sang out for his spouse, gave her the morsel, and flew off. Later in the morning he brought food and his mate carried it to the young. But afterwards, when she started to take a morsel from him, behold! he—the gay, frivolous little beau, the minstrel lover—actually acted as if he didn't want to give it up, as if he wanted to feed his own little birds himself. With wings trembling at his sides he turned his back on his mate and started to walk down the branch away from her! But he was too fond of her to even seem to refuse her anything, and so, coming back, gave her the morsel. She probably divined his thought, and, let us hope, was glad to have him show an interest in his children at last; at all events, when he came again with food and clung to the tip of a drooping twig waiting although she first lit above him and came down toward him with bill wide open and wings fluttering in the pretty, helpless, coquettish way female birds often tease to be fed; suddenly, as if remembering, she flew off, and—he went in to the nest himself! It was a conquest; the little lover was not altogether lacking in the paternal instinct after all! I looked at him with new respect.

On June 12 I wrote: "The wrens seem to have settled down to business." It was delightful to find the small father actually taking turns feeding the young. I saw him feed his mate only once or twice, and noticed much less of the quivering wings, though after leaving the nest he would sometimes light on a branch and move them tremulously at his sides for a moment. June 15 I wrote: "The birds are feeding rapidly to-day. I hear very little song from the male; probably he has all he can attend to. I'd like to know how many young ones there are in that hole." At all events, the voices of the young were getting stronger and more insistent, and it is no bagatelle to keep half a dozen gaping mouths full of spiders, as any mother bird can tell. This particular mother wren, however, seemed to enjoy her cares. She often called to the young from a branch in front of the nest before going in, and stopped to call back to them with a motherly-sounding krup-up-up as she stood in the entrance on leaving.

One day as one of the old birds stood in the doorway its mate flew into the nest right over its head. The astonished doorkeeper was so startled that it took to its wings.

Before this, in watching the wrens, I had looked off across a sunny field of golden oats, against the background of blue hills. On June 14, when I went to the nest, the mowers had been at work around the sycamores and the oat-field was full of cocks. Just as the wren was most anxious for peace and quietness, for a safe world into which to launch her brood, up came this rout of haymakers with all their clattering machines, laying low the meadows to her very door.

No wonder the little bird met me with nerves on edge. When the eggs had first hatched, she had objected to me, but mildly. To be sure, once when she found me staring she flew away over my head, scolding as much as to say, "Stop looking at my little birds," and finding me there when she came back, shook her wings at her sides and scolded hard, though her bill was full; but still her disapproval did not trouble me; it was too sociable. But now, for some time, affected by the shadow of coming events, she had been growing more and more fidgety under my gaze, darting inside, then whisking back to the door to look at me, in again to her brood and out to me, over and over like a flash—or, like a poor little troubled mother wren, distracted lest her unruly youngsters should pop out of the hole in the tree trunk when I was below to catch them.

On this day, when the wren came up from the dark nest pocket and found me below, she called back to her little ones in such distress that I felt reproached. By gazing fixedly through my glass into the dark hole I could see the head of a sprightly nestling pop up and turn alertly from side to side as if returning my inspection. The old wren's calls made me think of a human mother who can no longer control her big wayward offspring and has to entreat them to do as she bids. It was as if she said, "Oh, do be good children, do keep still; do put your heads back; you naughty children, you must do as I tell you!"

On June 16, six weeks after I had found the birds building, I wrote in my note-book: "I am astonished every morning when I come and find the wrens still here, but perhaps it's easier feeding them in one spot than it would be chasing around after them in half a dozen different places."

The young were chattering inside the nest. They all talked at once as children will, but one small voice assumed the tones of the mother; probably the oldest brother speaking with the air of authority featherless children sometimes assume with the weaker members of the family. When a parent came, I saw the big brother's head pop up from behind the wall,—the nest was in a pocket below,—and by the time the old bird got there with food the big throat blocked the way for the little ones down behind. Sometimes I could see a flutter of small wings and tails, when the birds were being fed.

As nothing happened, I went off to watch another nest, but in an hour was back to make sure of seeing the small wrens when they left the nest. A loud continuous scolding met me on approaching, and one of the old wrens, with bill full of insects, flew—not up to the nest—but down in among the weeds! In less than an hour that whole brood of wrens had flown, and were three or four rods away in the high weeds—safe! I was taken aback. They had stolen a march on me. Surely I had not been treated as was fit and proper, being one of the family!

It was amusing to see the young ones fly. They whirled away on their wings as if they had been flitting around in the big world always; but their stubby tails sadly interfered with their progress, and they came to earth before they meant.

Weak cries came from the young hidden in the weeds. They could fly, but it was different from being safe inside a tree trunk! I hardly recognized their weak appealing voices, after the stentorian tones that had issued from the old nest.

The weeds were a most admirable cover, and the dead stalks sticking up through them served as sentry posts, from which the old birds scolded me when I followed too close on their heels. The youngsters sometimes appeared on the stalks, and looked very pert on their long legs with their short tails cocked over their backs.

In the afternoon I went again to see the little family to which I had become so much attached and which were now slipping away from me. They had been led farther up the canyon, where, at a turn in the dry bed of the stream, the thick cover of weeds was still more protected by brush and overhanging trees, and the whole thicket was warmed by the afternoon sunshine. The old birds were busily flying back and forth feeding their invisible young. They scolded me as they flew past, but kept right on with their work.

There was little use trying to keep track of the brood after that, and I thought I had given them up quite philosophically, reflecting that it was pleasant to leave them in such a sunny protected place. Still, day after day in riding along the line of sycamores on my way to other nests, it gave me a pang of loneliness to pass the old deserted wren tree where I had spent so many happy hours; and though the sycamores were silent, I could always hear and see the little lover singing to his pretty mate.

III.

LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT.

When watching the little lover and his brood, I heard familiar voices farther down the line of oaks, voices of little friends I had made on my first visit to California, and had always remembered with lively interest as the jauntiest, most individual bits of humanity I had ever known in feathers. So, when Mountain Billy and I could be spared by the other bird families we were watching, we set out to hunt up the little bluish gray western gnatcatchers.

The (sand) stream that widened under the wren's sycamores narrowed up the canyon to a—dry ditch, I should say, if it were not disrespectful to speak that way of a channel that once a year carries a torrent which excavates canals in the meadows. Billy and I started up this sand ditch, so narrow between its weed-grown banks that there was barely room for us, and so arched over in places by chaparral that we could get through only when Billy put down his ears and I bowed low on the saddle.

Nest of Western Gnatcatcher.
(From a photograph.)

We had not gone far before we heard the gnatcatchers, bluish gray mites with heads that are always cocked on one side or the other to look down at something, and long tails that are always flipping about as their owners flaunt gayly through the bushes: At sound of their voices I pulled Billy up out of the ditch, and, slipping from his back, sat down on the ground to wait for the birds. Eureka! there, in a slender young oak on the edge of the stream not a rod away, one of the pair was gliding off its nest, a beautiful lichen-covered, compact little structure such as I had admired years before. I was jubilant. What a relief! I had fully expected it to be inside the dense brush, where no mortal could tell what was going on; and here it was out in the plain light of day. What a delightful time I should have watching it! Before leaving the spot, in imagination I had followed the brood out into the world and filled a note-book with the quaint airs and graces of the piquant pair.

When insinuating yourself into the secrets of the bird world, it is not well to be too obtrusive at first: it is a mistake to spend the day when you make your first call; so contenting myself with thinking of the morrow, and fixing the small oak in my memory, I took myself off before the blue-gray should tell on me to her mate. As I rose to go, a dove flew out of the oak—she had been brooding right over my head. Another nest, and a mourning dove's, one of the most gentle and winning of birds! Surely my good star was in the ascendent!

The next day, forgetful of this second nest, I rode Billy right up under the oak, and was startled to find the pretty dove sitting quietly over our heads, looking down at us out of her gentle eyes. It was a pleasant surprise. She let me talk to her, but when I had dismounted Billy tramped around so uneasily that the saddle caught in the oak branches and scared the poor bird away. I had hardly seated myself when the jaunty little gnatcatcher came flying over and lit in an upper branch of the tree. What a contrast she was to the quiet dove! With many flirts of the tail she hopped down to the nest, jumping from branch to branch as if tripping down a pair of stairs. When she dropped into her deep cup her small head stuck up over one edge, her long tail pointed over the other.[2]

I looked away a moment, and on glancing back found the nest empty. On the instant, however, came the sound of my small friend's voice. Such a talkative little person!—not one of your creep-in-and-out-of-the-nest-without-anybody's-knowing-it kind of a bird, not she! Her remarks sounded as if made over my head, and when Billy stamped about the brush and rapped the saddle trying to switch off flies, I imagined guiltily that they were addressed to me; but while I wondered if she would keep away all the rest of the morning because she had discovered me, back she came, talking to herself in complaining tones and whipping her tail impatiently, even after she stood on the edge of the nest, evidently absorbed in her own affairs, quite to the exclusion of the person down in the brush who thought herself so important!

My doves were attending to me, however, altogether too much. The brooding bird was anxious to go to her nest. After flying out where she could see me, she whizzed toward it; but, fearful, hesitated and talked it over with her mate—both birds cooed with inflated breaths. After that the branches rattled overhead, but even then, though my back was turned, the timid bird dared not stay. She must make another inspection. From an opposite oak she peered through the branches, moving her head excitedly, and calling out her impressions to her mate. Meanwhile, he had flown down the sand stream and called back quite calmly. I, also, cooed reassuringly to her, and soon she quieted down and began to plume her feathers on the sunny branch. As the gnatcatchers did not honor us with their attention even when Billy stalked around in plain sight, I moved a little closer to their nest to give the dove more freedom; and soon the gentle bird slipped back to her brooding.

Before leaving I went to see the dove in the oak, and spoke caressingly to her, admiring her soft dove-colored feathers and shining iridescent neck. She was on her own ground there, and felt that she could safely be friends, so she only winked in the sun, paying no heed to her mate when he called warningly. It was especially pleasant to watch this reserved lady-like bird, after the flippant tell-all-you-know little gnat.

On going away, Billy and I took a run up the canyon. Billy was in high spirits, and went racing up the narrow road, winding and turning through the chaparral, brushing me against the the stiff scrub oak and loping under low branches so fast that the sharp leaves snapped back, stinging my cheeks. We had a gay ride, with a spice of excitement thrown in; for on our way home, in the thick dust across our path, besides the pretty quail tracks that made wall-paper patterns on the road, were the straight trails of gopher snakes, and the scalloped one of a rattlesnake we had been just too late to meet.

At our next session with the blue-grays, when she was on the nest, her mate came back to relieve her and cried in his quick cheerful way, "Here I am, here I am!" Either she was taking a nap or didn't want to stir, for she didn't budge till he called insistently, "Here I am, here I am!" Then he hopped down in her place, and raising his head above the nest, remarked again, as if commenting upon the new situation, "Here I am!"

It was quite a different matter when she came back to work. She only called "hello," not even hinting that he should make way for her, but he hopped off at the first sound of her voice, flying away promptly to another tree and calling back like a gleeful boy let out of school, "Here I am!"

She was no more eager to go to the nest than he, however, and once when she came flirting leisurely along from twig to twig, she stopped a long time on the edge of the nest and leaned over, presumably to arrange the eggs; perhaps she and her mate had different views as to their proper positions. The next time I visited the gnats, she acted as if she really could not make up her mind to settle down to brooding on such a beautiful morning. The fog had cleared away and the air was fresh and full of life; goldfinches and lazuli buntings were singing merrily, and light-hearted vireos were shouting chick-a-de-chick'-de-villet' from the brush. How much pleasanter it would be for such an airy fairy to go off for a race with her mate than to settle down demurely tucked into a cup! "Tsang," she cried impatiently as she flew up to catch a fly. She flirted about the branches, whipped up in front of the nest, couldn't make up her mind to go in, and flounced off again. But the eggs would get cold if she didn't cover them, so back she came, hopped up on the edge of the nest, and stood twisting and turning, glancing this way and that as though for a fly to chase, till she happened to look down at the eggs; then she whipped her tail, dropped in and—jumped out again!

During the morning when she was away and her mate was waiting for her to come back to 'spell' him, he too got impatient. He hopped out of the nest crying, "Now here I am, quick, come quick!" and as he flew off, sang out in his funny little soliloquizing way, "Well, here I go; here I go!"

His restless spouse had only just settled down when a wren-tit—a wren-like bird with a long tail—flew into a bush near her oak, and she darted out of the nest to snap her bill over his head. I thought it merely an excuse to leave her brooding. Calling out "tsang," she again flew at the brown bird who was hopping around in the bush, so innocently, as I thought. Conqueror for the moment, she flaunted back to the nest, and after much ado finally settled down.

For a time all was quiet. Hearing the low cooing of doves, I went to talk to the pretty bird in the oak, and she let me come near enough to see her bluish bill and quiet eyes. As I returned to the gnatcatchers, a chewink was hoeing in the sand stream. Again the wren-tit approached stealthily. I watched with languid interest till he got to the gnat's tree. The instant he touched foot upon her domain, she dashed down at him, crying loudly and snapping her bill in his face. The brown bird dodged her blows, held his footing in spite of her, and slowly made his way up to the nest. I was astonished and frightened. He leaned over the nest, and—what he actually did I could not see, for by that time the blue-gray's cries had called her mate and they were both screaming and diving down at him as if they would peck his eyes out; and it sounded as if they hit him on the back good and hard.

A peaceful lazuli bunting, hearing the commotion, came to investigate, but when she saw what was happening held back against the side of a twig as though afraid of getting struck, and soon flew off, having no desire to get mixed up in that affray.

When the wren-tit had at last been driven from his position, the gnatcatchers flew up into a tree and, standing near together, talked the matter over excitedly. Then one of them went back to the nest, reached down into it and brought up something that it appeared to be eating. Its mate went to the nest and did the same, after which one of them flew away with a broken eggshell. When the little creatures turned away from the plundered nest they broke out into cries of distress that were pitiful to hear. I felt indignant at the wren-tit. How could a bird with eggs of its own do such a cruel thing? But then, I reflected, we who pretend to be better folks than wren-tits do not always spare our neighbors because of our own troubles. When the poor birds had carried away their broken eggshell, one of them came and tugged at the nest lining till it pulled out a long horsehair and what looked like a feather, apparently trying to take out everything that the egg had soiled.

When the little housekeeper was working over her nest, a brown towhee flew into the tree. On the instant there was a flash of wings—the gnat was ready for war. But after a fair look at the big peaceful bird, she flew to the next tree without a word—she evidently knew friends from enemies. I never liked the towhee so well before. But though the blue-gray had nothing to say against her neighbor sitting up in the tree if he chose, her nerves were so unstrung that when she lit in the next tree she cried out "tsang" in an overburdened tone. It sounded so unlike the usual cry of the light-hearted bird, it quite made me sad.

Whether the poor little gnatcatchers did not recover from this attack upon their home, and took their nest to pieces to put it up elsewhere, as birds sometimes do; or whether the stealthy wren-tit again crept in like a thief in the night to plunder his neighbor's house, I do not know; but the next time I went to the oak the nest was demolished. It was a sorry ending for what had promised to be such an interesting and happy home.

My poor dove's nest had a tragic end, too. What happened I do not know, but one day the body of a poor little pigeon lay on the ground under the nest. My sympathies went out to both mothers, but especially to the gentle dove, now a mourner, indeed.

IV.

WAS IT A SEQUEL?

After the wren-tit stole in like a thief in the night and broke up the pretty home of the gnatcatchers, I suspected that they took their house down to put it up again in a safer place, and so was constantly on the lookout to find where that safer place was. At last, one day, I heard the welcome sound of their familiar voices, and following their calls finally discovered them flying back and forth to a high branch on an old oak-tree; both little birds working and talking together. Mind, I do not stake my word on this being the same pair of gnats; but the nest followed closely on the heels of the plundered one, which was a point in its favor, and, being anxious to take up the lines with my small friends again, I let myself think they were the birds of the sand ditch nest. It was such a delight to find them that I deserted the nest I had been watching, and went to spend the next morning with my old friends. The tree they had chosen was a high oak in an open space in the brush, and they were building fifteen or twenty feet above the ground—so high that it was necessary to keep an opera-glass focused on the spot to see what was going on at their small cup.

As the birds worked, I was filled with forebodings by seeing a pair of wren-tits on the premises. They went about in the casual indifferent way sad experience had shown might cover a multitude of evil intentions, and which made me suspect and resent their presence. How had they found the poor little gnats? It was not hard to tell. How could they help finding such talkative fly-abouts? But if birds are in danger from all the world, including those who should be their comrades and champions, why should not builders keep as still at the nest as brooding birds, instead of heedlessly giving information to observers that lurk about taking notes for future misdeeds? But then, could gnatcatchers keep still anywhere at any time? No, that was not to be hoped for. I could only watch the little chatterers from hour to hour and be thankful for every day that their home was unmolested.

It was interesting to see how the jaunty indifferent gnats would act when settling down to plain matters of business. Strange to say, they proved to be the most energetic, tireless, and skillful of builders. Their floor had been laid—on the branch—before I arrived on the scene, and they were at work on the walls. The plan seemed to be twofold, to make the walls compact and strong by using only fine bits of material and packing them tightly in together; while at the same time they gave form to the nest and kept it trim and shipshape by moulding inside, and smoothing the rim and outside with neck and bill. Sometimes the bird would smooth the brim as a person sharpens a knife on a whetstone, a stroke one way and then a stroke the other. When the sides were not much above the floor, one bird came with a bit of material which it proceeded to drill into the body of the wall. It leaned over and threw its whole weight on it, almost going head first out of the nest, and had to flutter its wings to recover itself. The birds usually got inside to build, but there was a twig beside the nest that served for scaffolding, and they sometimes stood on that to work at the outside.

At first they seemed to take turns at building, working rapidly and changing places quite regularly; but one morning when seated under the oak I saw that things were not as they had been. Perhaps a difference of opinion had arisen on architectural points, and Mrs. Gnatcatcher had taken matters into her own hands. At all events, this is what happened: instead of rapid changes of place, when one of the gnats was at work its mate flew up and started to go to the nest, hesitated, and backed away; then unwilling to give up having a finger in the pie, advanced again. This was kept up till the little bird put its pride in its pocket, and gently gave over its cherished bit of material to its mate at the nest!

Now as these gnatcatchers had the bad taste to dress so nearly alike that I could not tell them apart, I was left to my own surmises as to which took the material. Still, who could it have been but Mrs. Gnat? Would she give over the house to Mr. Gnat at this critical moment? She doubtless wanted to decorate as she went along, and men aren't supposed to know anything about such trivial matters! On the other hand, it might easily be he, for, supposing he had come of a family of superior builders, surely he would want to see to the laying of substantial walls; and unquestionably a good wall was the important part of this nest. Alas! it was a clear case of "The Lady or the Tiger." To complicate matters, the birds worked so fast, so high over my head, and so hidden by the leaves, that I had much ado to keep track of their exchanges at all. If I could only catch them and tie a pink ribbon around one of their necks!—then, at least, I would know which was doing what, or if it was doing what it hadn't done before! It is inconsiderate enough of birds to wear the same kind of clothes, but to talk alike too, when hidden by the leaves—that, indeed, is a straw to break the camel's back. If small gray gnatcatchers up in the treetops had only been big black magpies low in the brush, my testimony regarding their performances might be of more value; but then, the magpies of my acquaintance were so shy they would have none of me; so although life and field work are full of disappointments, they are also full of compensations.

Not being able to do anything better with the gnat problems, I guessed at which was which—when I saw No. 2 go to the nest and No. 1 reluctantly make way as if not wanting No. 2 to meddle, I drew my own conclusions, although they were not scientifically final. I did see one thing that was satisfactory, as far as it went. One of the birds came with big tufts of stiff moss sticking out from either side of its bill like great mustachios, and going up to the nest, handed them to its mate—actually something big enough for a person to see, once! Whatever had been the birds' first feeling as to which should put the bricks in the wall, it was all settled now, and the little helpmate flew off singing out such a happy good-by it made one feel like writing a sermon on the moral effect of renunciation. After that I was sure the little helper fed his (?) mate on the nest, again singing out good-by as he flitted away. Once when he (?) brought material he found her (?) busy with what she had, and so went to the other end of the branch, and waited till she was ready for it, when he flew back and gave it to her.

It was a real delight to watch the little blue-grays at their work. Once as one of them started to fly away—I am sure this was she—she suddenly stopped to look back at the nest as if to think what she wanted to get next; or, perhaps, just to get the effect of her work at a distance, as an artist walks away from his painting; or as any mother bird would stop to admire the pretty nest that was to hold her little brood. Another time one of the gnats,—I was sure this was he,—having driven off an enemy, flipped his tail by the nest with a paternal air of satisfaction. The birds made one especially pretty picture; the little pair stood facing each other close to the nest, and the sun, filtering through the green leaves over their heads, touched them gently as they lingered near their home.

One morning when a gnat was in the nest a leaf blew down past it, startling it so it hopped out in such a hurry that the first I knew it was seated beneath the nest, flashing its tail.

Back and forth the dainty pair flew across the space of blue sky between the oak and the brush. They went so fast and carried so little it seemed as if they might have made their heads save their heels—they brought so little I couldn't see that they brought anything; but I feel delicate about telling what I know about nest-making, and it may be that this was just the secret of the wonderfully compact solid walls of the nest; a little at a time, and that drilled in to stay.

When one of the small builders flew down near me—within two yards—for material, I felt greatly pleased and flattered. Her mate warned her, but she paid no particular attention to him, and with jaunty twists and turns hopped about on the dead limbs, giving hurried jabs at the cobwebs she was gathering. Once she rubbed her little cheek against a twig as if a thread of the cobweb had gotten in her eye. She dashed in among the dead leaves after something, but flew back with a start as if she had seen a ghost. She was not to be daunted, however, and after whipping her tail and peering in for a moment, hopped bravely down again. Sometimes, when collecting cobweb, the gnat would whip its tail and snap its bill snip, snip, snip, as if cutting the web with a pair of scissors.

I was amused one day by seeing a gnat fly down from the oak to the brush with what looked like a long brown caterpillar. The worm dangling from the tip of his beak was almost as large as the bird, and the little fellow had to crook his tail to keep from being overbalanced and going on his bill to the ground.

As the nest went up, the leaves hid it; but I could still see the small wings and tails flip up in the air over the edge of the cup and jerk about as the bird moulded. I watched the workers so long that I felt quite competent to build a nest myself, till happening to remember that it required gnatcatcher tools.

Ornithologists are discouraging people to wait for, and Mountain Billy got so restless under the gnat tree that he had to invent a new fly-brush for himself. On one side of the oak the branches hung low to the ground, and he pushed into the tangle till the green boughs rested on his back and he was almost hidden from view. Meanwhile I sat close beside the chaparral wall, where all sorts of sounds were to be heard, suggestive of the industries of the population hidden within the brush at my back. Hearing small footsteps, I peered in through the brown twigs, and to my delight saw a pair of stately quail walking over the ground, promenading through the brush avenues. Afterwards I caught sight of a gray animal, probably a wood rat, running down a branch behind me, and heard queer muffled sounds of gnawing.

Suddenly, looking back, I was startled to see a big ringed brown and yellow snake lying like a rope at the foot of the gnat's tree, just where I had sat. He was about four feet long, and had twenty-three rings. He started to wind into the crotch of the oak as if meaning to climb the tree, but instead, crept to a stump and festooned himself about it worming around the holes as he might do if looking for nest holes. Imagine how a mother bird would feel to have him come stealing upon her little brood in that horrid way! When he crawled over the dead leaves I noted with a shiver that he made no sound. Thinking of the gnats, I watched his every movement till he had left the premises and wormed his way off through the brush. Though quite engrossed with the gnats, it was finally forced upon me that there is more than one family in the world. The blue-gray's oak was a favored one. A pair of hang-birds had built there before the gnats came, and now two more families had come, making four for the big oak.

When first suspecting a house on the north side of the tree, I moved my chair over there. Presently a vireo with disordered breast feathers flew down on a dead twig close to the ground and leaned over with a tired anxious look, and craning her neck, turned her head on one side, and bent her eyes on the ground scrutinizingly. Then she hopped down, picked up something, threw it away, picked up another piece and flew back to her perch with it, as if to make up her mind if she really wanted that. Then her mate came, raised his crown and looked down at the bit of material with a puzzled air as if wishing he knew what to say; as if he felt he ought to be able to help her decide. But he seemed helpless and could only follow her around when she was at work, singing to her betimes, and keeping off friends or enemies who came too near. When the young hatched I noticed a still more marked difference between the nervous manners of the gnats, and the repose of vireos. While the gnat flipped about distractedly, the vireo sat calmly beside her nest, an exquisite white basket hanging under the leaves in the sun, or walked carefully over the branches looking for food for the young. Some days before finding out the facts, I suspected that the wood pewee perching on the old tree had more important business there, for the way he and his mate flew back and forth to the oak top was very pointed. So again I moved my chair. To my delight the wood pewee flew up in the tree, sat down on a horizontal crotch, and went through the motions of moulding.

There were two birds, however, that simply used the tree as a resting-place, as far as I ever knew. A hummingbird perched on the tip of a twig, looking from below like a good sized bumblebee as he preened his feathers and looked off upon the world below. At the other side of the oak a pretty pink dove perched on a sunny branch that arched against the blue sky. It sat close to the branch beside the green leaves and dressed its feathers or dozed quietly in the sun. We had other visitors that the house owners did not accept so willingly. The gnatcatchers up the sand ditch whose nest had been broken up by the thief-in-the-night did not object to brown chippies, but perhaps, if this were the same pair, they had been made suspicious by their trouble. In any case, when a brown chippie lit on a limb near the nest, quite accidentally I believe, and turned to look at the pretty structure, quite innocently I feel sure, the little gnats fell on him tooth and nail, and when he hid under the leaves where they could not reach him they fluttered above the leaves, and the moment he ventured from under cover were both at him again so violently that at the first opportunity he took to his wings. There was one curious thing about this attack and expulsion; the gnats did not utter a word during the whole affair! I had never known them to be silent before when anything was going on—rarely when there wasn't.

Another morning when I rode in there was a great commotion up in the oak. A chorus of small scolding voices, and a fluttering of little wings among the branches told that something was wrong, while a large form moving deliberately about in the tree showed the intruder to be a blue jay! Aha! the gossips would wag their heads. I disapprove of gossip, but as a truthful reporter am obliged to say that I saw the blue jay pitch down into the brush with something white in his bill—perhaps a cocoon—and that thereupon a great weeping and wailing arose from the little folk up in the treetop. A big brown California chewink stood by and watched the—robbery(?), great big fellow that he was; and not once offered to take the little fellows' part. I felt indignant. Why didn't he pitch into the big bully and drive him off before he had stolen the little birds' egg—if it was an egg. A grosbeak called ick' from the treetop, but thought he'd better not meddle; and—it was a pair of wren-tits who looked out from a brush screen and then skulked off, chuckling to themselves, I dare say, that some one else was up to their tricks. It gave my faith in birds a great shock, this, together with the pillage of the gnat's nest by the thief-in-the-night. My spleen was especially turned against the brown chewink; he certainly was a good fighter, and might at least have helped to clear the neighborhood of such a suspicious character.

Where did the egg—if it was an egg—come from? The vireos and pewees and gnats were still building, I reflected thankfully, though trembling for their future; and fortunately the hangbird had young. Perhaps the jay had found a nest that I could not discover.

After that, things went on quietly for several days. The gnats got through with their building, and went off for a holiday until it should be time to begin brooding. They flitted about the branches warbling, as if having nothing special to do; dear little souls, at work as at play, always together. One of them unexpectedly found himself near me one day; but when he saw it was only I, whipped his tail and exclaimed "Oh, it's you'. I'm' not afraid."

This peace and quietness, however, did not last. The gnats' house was evidently haunted, and they did not like—blue—ghosts. One morning when I got to the oak it was all in a hubbub, and the vireo was scolding loudly at a blue jay. When the giant pitched into the brush the wren-tit chattered, and I thought perhaps the jay was teaching him how it feels to have a shoe pinch. A few moments later I was amazed to see a gnat jab at the wall till it got a bill full of material and then fly off to the brush with it! My little birds had moved! Evidently the neighborhood was too exciting for them. More than ten days of hard work—no one can tell how hard until after watching a gnatcatcher build—had been spent in vain on this nest; and if, as suspected, this was their second, how much more work did that mean? It was a marvel that the birds could get courage to start in again, especially if they had had two homes broken up already.

From my position at the big oak I could see that the gnats were carrying the frame of the old house to a small oak in the brush. The wood pewee had moved too, and to my surprise and pleasure I found it had begun its nest on a branch under the gnats, so that both families could be watched at the same time. I nearly got brushed off the saddle promenading through the stiff chaparral to find a place where the nests could be seen from the ground; but when at last successful, I too, like the rest of the old oak's floating population, moved to pastures new. Hanging my chair on the saddle, I made Billy carry it for me; then I buckled the reins around the trunk of the oak and withdrew into the brush to watch my birds. It was a cozy little nook, from which Billy could be heard stamping his feet to shake off the flies. The little crack in the chaparral was a pleasant place to sit in, protected as it was from the wind, with the sun only coming in enough to touch up the brown leaves on the ground and warm the fragrant sage, bringing out its delicious spicy aromatic smell.

The pewee did not altogether relish having us established under its vine and fig-tree. When it saw Billy under the tree it whistled, and the bit of grass it had brought for its nest went sailing down to the brush disregarded. It did not think us as bad as the blue jay, however, for it came back with a long stem of grass in its bill, and, lighting on a high branch, called pee-ree. To be sure, when it had gone to the nest and I was inconsiderate enough to turn a page in my note-book, it dashed off. But if murder will out, so will good intentions; and before long the timid bird was brooding its nest with Billy and me for spectators.

The gnat's nest here was so much lower than the other one that it was much easier to watch. The first day the birds built rapidly. One of them got his spider's web from beside the pewee's nest, when the pewee was away. He started to go for it once after the owner had returned, caught sight of him, stopped short, and much to my amusement concluded to sit down and preen his feathers! The pewee had one special bare twig of his own that he used for a perch, and when the gnat seated himself there in his neighbor's absence he looked so small that I realized what a mite of a bird he really was. He sometimes sat there and talked while his mate moulded the nest.

When the gnats got to brooding, many of the same pretty performances were repeated that had marked the first nest of all, up in the sand ditch. When the bird on the nest hopped out and called, "Come, come," its mate, who had been wandering around in the sunny green treetop, called out in sweet tones, "Good-by, good-by."

When waiting for the gnats to do something, I heard a little sound in the oak brush by my side, and, looking through the brown branches, saw a wren-tit come hopping toward me. It came up within three feet of me, near enough to see its bright yellow eyes. I began to wonder if it had a nest near by, and felt my prejudices melting away and my heart growing tender. Some thieves are very honest fellows; it is largely a difference in ethical standards! I began to feel a keen interest in the bird and its affairs, for the wren-tit was really a most original bird, and one I was especially anxious to study.

My newly awakened interest was not chilled by any second tragedy; all went well with the little blue-grays. The day the gnat's eggs hatched, the old folks performed most ludicrously. Perhaps they were young parents, and this being their first brood, maternal and paternal love had not yet blinded their eyes to the ridiculous; so that they looked down on these skinny, squirming, big-eyeballed prodigies with mingled emotions. It looked very much as if they were surprised to find that their smooth pretty eggs had suddenly turned into these ugly, weak, hungry things they did not know what to do with. At first it seemed that something must be wrong at the nest; the little gnat shook her wings and tail beside it as if afraid of soiling herself; and when she hopped into it, jerked out again and flitted around distractedly. Every time the birds looked into the nest they got so excited that, had they been girls, they surely would have hopped up and down wringing their hands. I laughed right out alone in the brush, they acted so absurdly.

They began feeding the nestlings in the most remarkable way I had ever witnessed. When the young mother was on the nest her mate came and brought her the food, whereupon, instead of jumping off the nest and feeding the young in the conventional way, she simply raised up on her feet and, apparently, poked the food backwards into the bills of the young under her breast! Even when the gnats got to feeding more in the ordinary way, they did it nervously. They fed as if expecting the young to bite them. They would fly up on the branch beside the nest, give a jab down at the youngsters, whip tails and flee. You would have thought the young parents had been playing house before, and their dolls had suddenly turned into live hungry nestlings.

I watched this family till the house was deserted, and I had to ride along a line of brush before finding them. The young were now pretty silvery-breasted creatures who sat up in a small oak while the old birds hunted through the brush for food for them. Though I rode Billy into the chaparral after them, and got near enough to see the black line over the bill of the father bird, they did not mind, but hunted away quite unconcernedly; for we had been through many things together, and were now old and fast friends.

V.

LITTLE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER.

I had not spent many days in The Little Lover's door-yard before realizing that there was something in the wind. If an inoffensive person fancies sitting in the shade of a sycamore with her horse grazing quietly beside her, who should say her nay? If, at her approach, a—feathered—person steals away to the top of the highest, most distant oak within sight and, silent and motionless, keeps his eye on her till she departs; if, as she innocently glances up at the trees, she discovers a second—feathered—person's head extended cautiously from behind a trunk, its eyes fixed on hers; or if, as she passes along a—sycamore—street, a person comes to a window and cranes his neck to look at her, and instantly leaves the premises; then surely, as the world wags, she is quite justified in having a mind of her own in the matter. Still more, when it comes to finding chips under a window—who could do aught but infer that a carpenter lived within? Not I. And so it came about that I discovered that one of the apartments in the back of the wren sycamore had been rented by a pair of well-meaning but suspicious California woodpeckers, first cousins of the eastern red-heads.

It is unpleasant to be treated as if you needed detectives on your track. It strains your faith in human nature; the rest of the world must be very wicked if people suspect such extremely good creatures as you are! And then it reflects on the detectives; it shows them so lacking in discernment. Nevertheless, "A friend should bear his friend's infirmities," and I was determined to be friends with the woodpeckers. One of them kept me waiting an hour one morning. When I first saw it, it was on its tree trunk, but when it first saw me, it promptly left for parts unknown. I stopped at a respectful distance from its tree—several rods away—and threw myself down on the warm sand in the bed of the dry stream, between high hedges of exquisite lemon-colored mustard. Patient waiting is no loss, observers must remember if they would be consoled for their lost hours. In this case I waited till I felt like a lotus-eater who could have stayed on forever. A dove brooded her eggs on a branch of the spreading sycamore whose arms were outstretched protectingly above me; the sun rested full on its broad leaves, and bees droned around the fragrant mustard, whose exquisite golden flowers waved gently against a background of soft blue California sky.

But that was not the last day I had to wait. It was over a month before the birds put any trust in me. The nest hole was excavated before the middle of May; on June 15 I wrote in my note-book, "The woodpecker has gotten so that when I go by she puts her head out of the window, and when I speak to her does not fly away, but cocks her head and looks down at me."[3] That same morning the bird actually entered the nest in my presence. She came back to her sycamore while I was watching the wrens, and flew right up to the mouth of the nest. She was a little nervous. She poked in her bill, drew it back; put in her head, drew that back; then swung her body partly in; but finally the tip of her tail disappeared down the hole.

The next morning, in riding by, I heard weak voices from the woodpecker mansion. If young were to be fed, I must be on hand. Such luxurious observing! Riding Mountain Billy out into the meadow, I dismounted, and settled myself comfortably against a haycock with the bridle over my arm. It was a beautiful quiet morning. The night fog had melted back and the mountains stood out in relief against a sky of pure deep blue. The line of sycamores opposite us were green and still against the blue; the morning sun lighting their white trunks and framework. The songs of birds filled the air, and the straw-colored field dotted with haycocks lay sunning under the quiet sky. In the East we are accustomed to speak of "the peace of evening," but in southern California in spring there is a peculiar interval of warmth and rest, a langorous pause in the growth of the morning, between the disappearance of the night fog and the coming of the cool trade wind, when the southern sun shines full into the little valleys and the peace of the morning is so deep and serene that the labor of the day seems done. Nature appears to be slumbering. She is aroused slowly and gently by the soft breaths that come in from the Pacific. On this day I watched the awakening. Up to this time not a grass blade had stirred, but while I dreamed a brown leaf went whirling to the ground, the stray stalks of oats left from the mowing began to nod, and the sycamore branches commenced to sway. Then the breeze swelled stronger, coming cool and fresh from the ocean; the yellow primroses, around which the hummingbirds whirred, bowed on their stately stalks, and I could hear the wind in the moving treetops.

Mountain Billy grazed near me till it occurred to him that stubble was unsatisfactory, when he betook him to my haycock. Though I lectured him upon the rights of property and enforced my sermon with the point of the parasol, he was soon back again, with the amused look of a naughty boy who cannot believe in the severity of his monitor; and later, I regret to state, when I was engrossed with the woodpeckers, a sound of munching arose from behind my back.

The woodpeckers talked and acted very much like their cousins, the red-heads of the East. When they went to the nest they called chuck'-ah as if to wake the young, flying away with the familiar rattling kit-er'r'r'r'. They flew nearly half a mile to their regular feeding ground, and did not come to the nest as often as the wrens when bringing up their brood. Perhaps they got more at a time, filling their crops and feeding by regurgitation, as I have seen waxwings do when having a long distance to go for food.

I first heard the voices of the young on June 16; nearly three weeks later, July 6, the birds were still in the nest. On that morning, when I went out to mount Billy, I was shocked to find the body of one of the old woodpeckers on the saddle. I thought it had been shot, but found it had been picked up in the prune orchard. That afternoon its mate was brought in from the same place. Probably both birds had eaten poisoned raisins left out for the gophers. The dead birds were thrown out under the orange-trees near the house, and not many hours afterward, when I looked out of the window, two turkey vultures were sitting on the ground, one of them with a pathetic little black wing in his bill. The great black birds seemed horrible to me,—ugly, revolting creatures. I went outside to see what they would do, and after craning their long red necks at me and stalking around nervously a few moments they flew off.

Now what would become of the small birds imprisoned in the tree trunk, with no one to bring them food, no one to show them how to get out, or, if they were out, to feed them till they had learned how to care for themselves? Sad and anxious, I rode down to the sycamore. I rapped on its trunk, calling chuck'-ah as much like the old birds as possible. There was an instant answer from a strong rattling voice and a weak piping one. The weak voice frightened me. If that little bird's life were to be saved, it was time to be about it. The ranchman's son was pruning the vineyard, and I rode over to get him to come and see how we could rescue the little prisoners.

On our way to the tree we came on a gopher snake four feet long. It was so near the color of the soil that I would have passed it by, but the boy discovered it. The creature lay so still he thought it was dead; but as we stood looking, it puffed itself up with a big breath, darted out its tongue, and began to move off. I watched to see how it made the straight track we so often saw in the dust of the roads. It bent its neck into a scallop for a purchase, while its tapering tail made an S, to furnish slack; and then it pulled the main length of its body along straight. It crawled noiselessly right to the foot of the woodpecker tree, but was only hunting for a hole to hide in. It got part way down one hole, found that it was too small, and had to come backing out again. It followed the sand bed, taking my regular beat, from tree to tree! To be sure, gopher snakes are harmless, but they are suggestive, and you would rather their ways were not your ways.

Although the little prisoners welcomed us as rescuers should be welcomed, they did it by mistake. They thought we were their parents. At the first blow of the axe their voices hushed, and not a sound came from them again. It seemed as if we never should get the birds out.

It looked easy enough, but it wasn't. The nest was about twelve feet above the ground. The sycamore was so big the boy could not reach around it, and so smooth and slippery he could not get up it, though he had always been a good climber. He clambered up a drooping branch on the back of the tree,—the nest was in front,—but could not swing himself around when he got up. Then he tried the hollow burned at the foot of the tree. The charred wood crumbled beneath his feet, but at last, by stretching up and clinging to a knothole, he managed to reach the nest.

As his fingers went down the hole, the young birds grabbed them, probably mistaking them for their parents' bills. "Their throats seem hot," the boy exclaimed; "poor hungry little things!" His fingers would go through the nest hole, but not his knuckles, and the knothole where he steadied himself was too slippery to stand on while he enlarged the hole. It was getting late, and as he had his chores to do before dark I suggested that we feed the birds and leave them in the tree till morning; but the rescuer exclaimed resolutely, "We'll get them out to-night!" and hurried off to the ranch-house for a step-ladder and axe.

The ladder did not reach up to the first knothole, four or five feet below the nest; but the boy cut a notch in the top of the knot and stood in it, practically on one foot, and held on to a small branch with his right hand—the first limb he trusted to broke off as he caught it—while with the left hand he hacked away at the nest hole. It was a ticklish position and genuine work, for the wood was hard and the hatchet dull.

I stood below holding the carving-knife,—we hadn't many tools on the ranch,—and as the boy worked he entertained me with an account of an accident that happened years before, when his brother had chopped off a branch and the axe head had glanced off, striking the head of the boy who was watching below. I stood from under as he finished his story, and inquired with interest if he were sure his axe head was tight! Before the lad had made much impression on the hard sycamore, he got so tired and looked so white around the mouth that I insisted on his getting down to rest, and tried to divert him by calling his attention to the sunset and the voices of the quail calling from the vineyard. When he went up again I handed him the carving-knife to slice off the thinner wood on the edge of the nest hole, warning him not to cut off the heads of the young birds.

At last the hole was big enough, and, sticking the hatchet and knife into the bark, the lad threw one arm around the trunk to hold on while he thrust his hand down into the nest. "My, what a deep hole!" he exclaimed. "I don't know as I can reach them now. They've gone to the bottom, they're so afraid." Nearly a foot down he had to squeeze, but at last got hold of one bird and brought it out. "Drop him down," I cried, "I'll catch him," and held up my hands. The little bird came fluttering through the air. The second bird clung frightened to the boy's coat, but he loosened its claws and dropped it down to me. What would the poor old mother woodpecker have thought had she seen these first flights of her nestlings!

I hurried the little scared brothers under my jacket, my best substitute for a hollow tree, and called chuck'-ah to them in the most woodpecker-like tones I could muster. Then the boy shouldered the ladder, and I took the carving-knife, and we trudged home triumphant; we had rescued the little prisoners from the tower!

When we had taken them into the house the woodpeckers called out, and the cats looked up so savagely that I asked the boy to take the birds home to his sister to keep till they were able to care for themselves. On examining them I understood what the difference in their voices had meant. One of them poked his head out of the opening in my jacket where he was riding, while the other kept hidden away in the dark; and when they were put into my cap for the boy to carry home, the one with the weak voice disclosed a whitish bill—a bad sign with a bird—and its feeble head bent under it so weakly that I was afraid it would die.

Three days later, when I went up to the lad's house, it was to be greeted by loud cries from the little birds. Though they were in a box with a towel over it, they heard all that was going on. Their voices were as sharp as their ears, and they screamed at me so imperatively that I hurried out to the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards till I found some food for them. They opened their bills and gulped it down as if starving, although their guardian told me afterwards that she had fed them two or three hours before.

When held up where the air could blow on them, they grew excited; and one of them flew down to the floor and hid away in a dark closet, sitting there as contentedly as if it reminded him of his tree trunk home.

I took the two brothers out into the sitting-room and kept them on my lap for some time, watching their interesting ways. The weak one I dubbed Jacob, which is the name the people of the valley had given the woodpeckers from the sound of their cries; the stronger bird I called Bairdi, as 'short' for Melanerpes formicivorus bairdi—the name the ornithologists had given them.

Jacob and Bairdi each had ways of his own. When offered a palm, Bairdi, who was quite like 'folks,' was content to sit in it; but Jacob hung with his claws clasping a little finger as a true woodpecker should; he took the same pose when he sat for his picture. Bairdi often perched in my hand, with his bill pointing to the ceiling, probably from his old habit of looking up at the door of his nest. Sometimes when Bairdi sat in my hand, Jacob would swing himself up from my little finger, coming bill to bill with his brother, when the small bird would open his mouth as he used to for his mother to feed him. Poor little orphans, they could not get used to their changed conditions!

They did other droll things just as their fathers had done before them. They used to screw their heads around owl fashion, a very convenient thing for wild birds who cling to tree trunks and yet need to know what is going on behind their backs. Once, on hearing a sudden noise, one of them ducked low and drew his head in between his shoulders in such a comical way we all laughed at him.

I often went up to the ranch to visit them. We would take them out under a big spreading oak beside the house, where the little girl's mother sat with her sewing, and then watch the birds as we talked. When we put them on the tree trunk, at first they did not know what to do, but soon they scrambled up on the branches so fast their guardian had to climb up after them for fear they would get away. Poor little Jacob climbed as if afraid of falling off, taking short hops up the side of the tree, bending his stiff tail at a sharp angle under him to brace himself against the bark. Bairdi, his strong brother, was less nervous, and found courage to catch ants on the bark. Jacob did a pretty thing one day. When put on the oak, he crept into a crack of the bark and lay there fluffed up against its sides with the sun slanting across, lighting up his pretty red cap. He looked so contented and happy it was a pleasure to watch him. Another time he started to climb up on top of my head and, I dare say, was surprised and disappointed when what he had taken for a tree trunk came to an untimely end. When we put the brothers on the grass, one of them went over the ground with long hops, while the other hid under the rocking-chair. One bird seemed possessed to sit on the white apron worn by the little girl's mother, flying over to it from my lap, again and again.

The woodpeckers had brought from the nest a liking for dark, protected places. Bairdi twice clambered up my hair and hung close under the brim of my black straw hat. Another time he climbed up my dress to my black tie and, fastening his claws in the silk, clung with his head in the dark folds as if he liked the shade. I covered the pretty pet with my hand and he seemed to enjoy it. When I first looked down at him his eyes were open, though he kept very still; but soon his head dropped on my breast and he went fast asleep, and would have had a good nap if Jacob had not called and waked him up.

Jacob improved so much after the first few days—and some doses of red pepper—that we had to look twice to tell him from his sturdy brother. He certainly ate enough to make him grow. The birds liked best to be fed with a spoon; probably it seemed more like a bill. After a little, they learned to peck at their food, a sign I hailed eagerly as indicative of future self-support; for with appetites of day laborers and no one to supply their wants, they would have suffered sorely, poor little orphans! Sometimes, when they had satisfied their first hunger, they would shake the bread from their bills as if they didn't like it and wanted food they were used to.

JACOB AND BAIRDI VISITING THE OLD NEST TREE

When one got hungry he would call out, and then his brother would begin to shout. The little tots gave a crooning gentle note when caressed, and a soft cry when they snuggled down in our hands or cuddled up to us as they had done under their mother's wing. Their call for food was a sibilant chirr, and they gave it much oftener than any of the grown-up woodpecker notes. But they also said chuck'-ah and rattled like the old birds.

I was glad there were two of them so they would not be so lonely. If separated they showed their interest in each other. If Bairdi called, Jacob would keep still and listen attentively, raising his topknot till every microscopic red feather stood up like a bristle, when he would answer Bairdi in a loud manly voice.

It was amusing to see the small birds try to plume themselves. Sometimes they would take a sudden start to make their toilettes, and both work away vigorously upon their plumes. It was comical to see them try to find their oil glands. Had the old birds taught them how to oil their feathers while they were still in the nest? They were thickly feathered, but when they reached back to their tails the pink skin showed between their spines and shoulders, giving a good idea of the way birds' feathers grow only in tracts.

When the little princes were about a month old, I arranged with a neighboring photographer to have them sit for their picture. He drove over to the sycamore, and the lad who had rescued the prisoners took them down to keep their appointment. One of them tried to tuck its head up the boy's sleeve, being attracted by dark holes. While we were waiting for the photographer, the boy put Jacob in a hollow of the tree, where he began pecking as if he liked it. He worked away till he squeezed himself into a small pocket, and then, with his feathers ruffled up, sat there, the picture of content. Indeed, the little fellow looked more at home than I had ever seen him anywhere. The rescuer was itching to put the little princes back in their hole, to see what they would do, but I wouldn't listen to it, being thankful to have gotten them out once.

When Bairdi was on the bark and Jacob was put below him, he turned his head, raised his red cap, and looked down at his brother in a very winning way.

Soon the photographer came, and asked, "Are these the little chaps that try to swallow your fingers?" We were afraid they would not sit still enough to get good likenesses, but we had taken the precaution to give them a hearty breakfast just before starting, and they were too sleepy to move much. In the picture, Jacob is clinging to the boy's hand in his favorite way, and Bairdi is on the tree trunk.

Mountain Billy pricked up his ears when he discovered the woodpeckers down at the sycamore, but he often saw them up at the ranch and took me to make a farewell call on them before I left for the East. We found the birds perched on the tobacco-tree in front of the ranch-house, with a tall step-ladder beside it so the little girl could take them in at night. Their cup of bread and milk stood on the ladder, and when I called them they came over to be fed. They were both so strong and well that they would soon be able to care for themselves, as their fathers had done before them. And when they were ready to fly, they might have help; for an old woodpecker of their family—possibly an unknown uncle—had been seen watching them from the top of a neighboring oak, and may have been just waiting to adopt the little orphans. In any case, however they were to start out in the world, it was a great satisfaction to have rescued them from their prison tower.

VI.

HINTS BY THE WAY.

On our way back and forth along the line of oaks and sycamores belonging to the little prisoners, the little lover, and the gnatcatchers, Mountain Billy and I got a good many hints, he of places to graze, and I of new nests to watch.

While waiting for the woodpeckers one day I saw a small brownish bird flying busily back and forth to some green weeds. She was joined by her mate, a handsome blue lazuli bunting, even more beautiful than our lovely indigo bunting, and he flew beside her full of life and joy. He lit on the side of a cockle stem, and on the instant caught sight of me. Alas! he seemed suddenly turned to stone. He held onto that stalk as if his little legs had been bars of iron and I a devouring monster. When he had collected his wits enough to fly off, instead of the careless gay flight with which he had come out through the open air, he timidly kept low within the cockle field, making a circuitous way through the high stalks.

He could be afraid of me if he liked, I thought,—for after a certain amount of suspicion an innocent person gets resentful; at any rate, I was going to see that nest. Creeping up cautiously when the mother bird was away, so as not to scare her, and carefully parting the mallows, I looked in. Yes, there it was, a beautiful little sage-green nest of old grass laid in a coil. I felt as pleased as if having a right to share the family happiness.

After that I watched the small worker gather material with new interest, knowing where she was going to put it. She worked fast, but did not take the first thing she found, by any means. With a flit of the wing she went in nervous haste from cockle to cockle, looking eagerly about her. Jumping down to the ground, she picked up a bit of grass, threw it down dissatisfied, and turned away like a person looking for something. At last she lit on the side of a thistle, and tweaking out a fibre flew with it to the nest.

When the house was done, one morning in passing I leaned down from the saddle, and through the weeds saw her brown wings as she sat on the nest. A month after the first encounter with the father lazuli, I found him looking at me around the corner of a cockle stalk, and in passing back again caught him singing full tilt, though his bill was full of insects! After we had turned our backs, I looked over my shoulder and had the satisfaction of seeing him take his beakful to the nest. You couldn't help admiring him, for though not a warrior who would snap his bill over the head of an enemy of his home, he had a gallant holiday air with his blue coat and merry song, and you felt sure his little brown mate would get cheer and courage enough from his presence to make family dangers appear less frightful. Even this casual acquaintance with the little pair gave me a new and tender interest in all of their name I might know in future.

While watching the lazulis from the sycamores, on looking up on a level with Billy's ears, I discovered a snug canopied nest held by a jointed branch of the twisted tree, as in the palm of your hand. It was as if the old sycamore were protecting the little brood, holding it secure from all dangers. Looking at the nest, I spied a brown tail resting against the limb, and then a small brown head was raised to look at me from between the leaves. It was the little bird whose sweet home-like song had so cheered my heart in this far-away land, the home song sparrow, dearer than all the birds of California. It was such a pleasure to find her that I sat in the saddle and talked to the pretty bird while she brooded her eggs under the green leaves.

The next time we went down to the sycamore the bird was away, and it seemed as if the tree had been deserted. It was empty and uninteresting. Again I came, and this time the father song sparrow sang blithely in the old tree, while his gentle mate went about looking for food for her brood. Her little birds had come! How happy and full of business she seemed! She ran nimbly over the ground, weaving in and out between the stalks of the oats and the yellow mustard, as if there were paths in her forest. When she had to run across the sand bed, out in open sight, she put up her tail, held her wings tight at her sides, and scudded across. Then with the sunlight through the leaves dappling her back, she ran around the foot of the sycamore. She had something in her bill, and with a happy chirp was off to her brood.

There was another family abroad on our beat. When riding past the little lover's, I heard voices of young birds beyond, and rode out to the oak in the middle of the field from which they came, to see who it was. It was a surprise to find a family of full-fledged blue jays—a surprise, because the jays had been terrorizing the small birds of the neighborhood till it seemed strange to think they had any family life themselves. I had come to feel that they were great hobgoblins going about seeking whom they could devour; but such harsh judgments are usually false, whether of birds or beasts, and I was convinced against my will on hearing the tender tone in which the old jays called to their young.

To be sure, they were imperative in their commands. As I rode, around the tree, one of them looked at me sharply and proceeded to take measures to protect his brood. When one of the children told me where he was, his parent promptly flew over and shouted in his ear, "Be quiet!" with such a ring of command that an unbroken hush followed. Moreover, when one child, probably a greedy one, teased for food, its parent ran down the branch to drive it off; and in some way best known to themselves the old birds hushed up the boisterous young ones and spirited them out of my sight. But all these things were in line with good family government and the best interests of the children, and were more than atoned for by the soft gentle notes the old birds used when they were leading around their cherished brood out of harm's way.

VII.

AROUND OUR RANCH-HOUSE.

Close up under the hills, the old vine-covered ranch-house stood within a circle of great spreading live oaks. The trees were full of noisy, active blackbirds—Brewer's blackbirds, relatives of the rusty that we know in New York. The ranchman told me that they always came up the valley from the vineyard to begin gathering straws for their nests on his brother's birthday, the twenty-fifth of March. After that time it was well for passers below to beware. If an unwary cat, or even a hen or turkey gobbler, chanced under the blackbirds' tree, half a dozen birds would dive down at it, screaming and scolding till the intruders beat an humble retreat. But the blackbirds were not always the aggressors. I heard a great outcry from them one day, and ran out to find them collecting at the tree in front of the house. A moment later a hawk flew off with a young nestling, and was followed by an angry black mob.

One pair of the blackbirds nested in the oak by the side of the house, over the hammock. Though making themselves so perfectly at home on the premises, driving off the ranchman's cats and gobblers, and drinking from his watering-trough, if they were taken at close quarters, with young in their nests, the noisy birds were astonishingly timid. One could hardly understand it in them.

One afternoon I sat down under the tree to watch them. Mountain Billy rested his bridle on my knee, and the ranchman's dog came out to join us; but the mother blackbird, though she came with food in her bill and started to walk down the branch over our heads, stopped short of the nest when her eye fell on us. She shook her tail and called chack, and her mate, who sat near, opened wide his bill and whistled chee. The small birds were hungry and grew impatient, seeing no cause for delay, so raised their three fuzzy heads above the edge of the nest and sent imperative calls out of their three empty throats. As the parents did not answer the summons, the young dozed off again, but when the old ones did get courage to light near the nest there was such a rousing chorus that they flew off alarmed for the safety of their clamorous brood. After that outbreak, it seemed as if the mother bird would never go back to her children; but finally she came to the tree and, after edging along falteringly, lit on a branch above them. The instant she touched foot, however, she was seized with nervous qualms and turned round and round, spreading her tail fan-fashion, as if distracted.

To my surprise, it was the father bird who first went to the nest, though he had the wit to go to it from the outside of the tree, where he was less exposed to my dangerous glance. I wondered whether it was mother love that kept her from the nest when he ventured, or merely a case of masculine common-sense versus nerves. How birds could imagine more harm would be done by going to the nest than by making such a fuss five feet away from it was a poser to me. Perhaps they attribute the same intelligence to us that some of us do to them!

While the blackbirds were making such a time over our heads, I watched the hummingbirds buzzing around the petunias and pink roses under the ranch-house windows, and darting off to flutter about the tubular flowers of the tobacco-tree by the well. One day the small boy of the family climbed up to the hummingbird's nest in the oak "to see if there were eggs yet," and the frightened brood popped out before his eyes. His sister caught one of them and brought it into the house. When she held it up by the open door the tiny creature spread its little wings and flew out into the vines over the window. The child was so afraid its mother would not find it she carried it back to its oak and watched till the mother came with food. The hummers were about the flowers in front of the windows so much that when the front door was left open they often came into the room.

In an oak behind the barn I found a hummingbird's nest, and, yielding to temptation, took out the eggs to look at them. In putting them back one slipped and dropped on the hard ground, cracking the delicate pink shell as it fell. The egg was nearly ready to hatch, and I felt as guilty as if having killed a hummingbird.

When in the hammock under the oak one day, I saw a pair of the odd-looking Arizona hooded orioles busily going and coming to a drooping branch on the edge of the tree. They had a great deal to talk about as they went and came, and when they had gone I found, to my great satisfaction, that they had begun a nest. They often use the gray Spanish moss, but here had found a good substitute in the orange-colored parasitic vine of the meadows known among the people of the valley as the 'love-vine' (dodder). The whole pocket was composed of it, making a very gaudy nest.

Linnets nested in the same old tree. Indeed, it is hard to say where these pretty rosy house finches, cousins of our purple finches, would not take it into their heads to build. They nested over the front door, in the vines over the windows, in the oaks and about the outbuildings, and their happy musical songs rang around the ranch-house from morning till night. As I listened to their merry roundelay day after day during that beautiful California spring, it sounded to me as though they said, "How-pretty-it-is'-out, how-pretty-it-is'-out, how-pretty-it-is'!" The linnets are ardent little wooers, singing and dancing before the indifferent birds they would win for their mates. I once saw a rosy lover throw back his pretty head and hop about before his brown lady till she was out of patience and turned her back on him. When that had no effect, she opened her bill, spread her wings, and leaned toward him as if saying, "If you don't stop your nonsense, I'll——" But the fond linnets' gallantry and tenderness are not all spent in the wooing. When the mother bird was brooding her nest over our front door, her crimson-throated mate stood on the peak of the ridgepole above and sang blithely to her, turning his head and looking down every little while to make sure that she was listening to his pretty prattle.

One of the birds that nested in the trees by the ranch-house was the bee-bird, who was soft gray above and delicate yellow below, instead of dark gray above and shining white below, like his eastern relative, the kingbird. The birds used to perch on the bare oak limbs, flycatching. It was interesting to watch them. They would fly obliquely into the air and then turn, with bills bristling with insects, and sail down on outstretched wings, their square tails set so that the white outer feathers showed to as good advantage as the white border of the kingbird's does in similar flights. They made a bulky untidy nest in the oaks by the barn, using a quantity of string borrowed from the ranchman. Their voices were high-keyed and shrill with an impatient emphasis, and at a distance suggested the shrill yelping of the coyote. Kee'-ah, kee-kee' kee'-ah, they would cry. The wolves were so often heard around the ranch-house that in the early morning I have sometimes mistaken the birds for them.

One of the favorite hunting-grounds of the bee-birds was the orchard, where they must have done a great deal of good destroying insects. They were quarrelsome birds, and were often seen falling through the air fighting vigorously. I saw one chase a sparrow hawk and press it so hard that the hawk cried out lustily. The ranchman's son told me of one bee-bird who defended his nest with his life. Two crows lit in a tree where the flycatcher had a nest containing eggs. The crows had difficulty in getting to the tree to begin with, for the bee-birds fought them off; and though they lighted, were soon dislodged and chased down the vineyard. The man was at work there, and as the procession passed over his head the bee-bird dove at the crow; the crow struck back at him, crushing his skull, and the flycatcher dropped through the air, dead! The other bee-bird followed its dead mate to the ground, and then, without a cry, flew to a tree and let the crows go on their way.

The bee-bird was one of the noisiest birds about the ranch-house, but commoner than he; in fact, the most abundant bird, next to the linnet and blackbird, was the California chewink, or, as the ranchman appropriately called him, the 'brown chippie;' for he does not look like the handsome chewink we know, but is a fat, dun brown bird with a thin chip that he utters on all occasions. He is about the size of the eastern robin, and, except when nesting, almost as familiar. There were brown chippies in the door-yard, brown chippies around the barns, and brown chippies in the brush till one got tired of the sight of them.

The temptations that come to conscientious observers are common to humanity, and one of the subtlest is to undervalue what is at hand and overvalue the rare or distant. Unless a bird is peculiarly interesting, it requires a definite effort to sit down and study him in your own dooryard, or where he is so common as to be an every-day matter. The chippies were always sitting around, scratching, or picking up seeds; or else quarreling among themselves. Feeling that it was my duty to watch them, I reasoned with myself, but they seemed so mortally dull and uninteresting it was hard work to give up any time to them. When they went to nesting, their wild instincts asserted themselves, and they hid away so closely I was never sure of but one of their nests, and that only by most cautious watching. Then for the first time they became interesting! To my surprise, one day I heard a brown chippie lift up his voice and sing. It was in a sunny grove of oaks, and though his song was a queer squeaky warble, it had in it a good deal of sweetness and contentment; for the bird seemed to find life very pleasant. The ranchman's son told me that up in the canyons at dusk he had sometimes heard towhee concerts, the birds answering each other from different parts of the canyon.

There was a nest in the chaparral which probably belonged to these chewinks. It was in a mass of poison ivy that had climbed up on a scrub-oak. I spent the best part of a morning waiting for the birds to give in their evidence. Brown sentinels were posted on high bare brush tops, where they chipped at me, and once a brown form flew swiftly away from the nest bush; but like most people whose conversation is limited to monosyllables, the towhees are good at keeping a secret. While watching for them, I heard a noise that suggested angry cats spitting at each other; and three jack-rabbits came racing down the chaparral-covered knoll. One of them shot off at a tangent while the other two trotted along the openings in the brush as if their trails were roads in a park. Then a cottontail rabbit came out on a spot of hard yellow earth encircled by bushes, and lying down on its side kicked up its heels and rolled like a horse; after which the pretty thing stretched itself full length on the ground to rest, showing a pink light in its ears. After a while it got up, scratched one ear, and with a kick of one little furry leg ran off in the brush. Another day, when I sat waiting, I saw a jack-rabbit's ears coming through the brush. He trotted up within a few feet, when he stopped, facing me with head and ears up; a noble-looking little animal, reminding me of a deer with antlers branching back. He stood looking at me, not knowing whether to be afraid or not, and turning one ear trumpet and then the other. But though smiling at him, I was a human being, there was no getting around that; and after a few undecided hops, this way and that, he ran off and disappeared in the brush. Near where he had been was a spot where a number of rabbit runways came to a centre, and around it the rabbit council had been sitting in a circle, their footprints proved.

Brown chippies were not much commoner around the ranch-house than western house wrens were, but the big prosaic brown birds seemed much more commonplace. The wrens were strongly individual and winning wherever they were met. They nested in all sorts of odd nooks and corners about the buildings. One went so far as to take up its abode in the wire-screened refrigerator that stood outside the kitchen under an oak! Another pair stowed their nest away in an old nosebag hanging on a peg in the wine shed; while a third lived in one of the old grape crates piled up in the raisin shed.

The crate nest was delightful to watch. The jolly little birds, with tails over their backs and wings hanging, would sing and work close beside me, only three or four feet away. They would look up at me with their frank fearless eyes and then squeeze down through their crack into the crate, and sit and scold inside it—such an amusing muffled little scold! The nest was so astonishingly large I was interested to measure it. Twigs were strewn loosely over one end of the box, covering a square nearly sixteen inches on a side. The compact high body of the nest measured eight by ten inches, and came so near the top of the crate that the birds could just creep in under the slats. Some of the twigs were ten inches long, regular broom handles in the bills of the short bobbing wrens. One of the birds once appeared with a twig as long as itself. It flew to the side of a beam with it, at sight of me, and stood there balancing the stick in its bill, in pretty fashion. Another time it flew to the peak of the shed to examine an old swallow's nest now occupied by linnets, and amused itself throwing down its neighbors' straws—the naughty little rogue!

Such jolly songsters! They were fairly bubbling over with happiness all the time. They had an old stub in front of the shed that might well have been called the singing stub, for they kept it ringing with music when they were not running on inside the shed. They seemed to warble as easily as most birds breathe; in fact, song seemed a necessity to them. There was a high pole in front of the shed, and one day I found my ebullient little friend squatting on top to hold himself on while he sang out at the top of his lungs! Another time I came face to face with a pair when the songster was in the midst of his roundelay. He stopped short, bobbed nervously from side to side, and then, rising to his feet and putting his right foot forward with a pretty courageous gesture, took up his song again. When the pair were building in the crate, I stuck some white hen's feathers there, thinking they might like to use them. Mr. Troglodytes came first, and seeing them, instead of turning tail as I have known brave guardians of the nest to do, burst out singing, as if it were a huge joke. Then he hopped down on the rim of the box to scrutinize the plumes, after which he flew out. But he had to stop to sing atilt of an elder stem before he could go on to tell his spouse about them.

One day, when riding back to the ranch, I saw half a dozen turkey buzzards soaring over the meadow—perhaps there was a dead jack-rabbit in the field. It was astonishing to see how soon the birds would discover small carrion from their great height. The ranchman never thought of burying anything, they were such good scavengers. A few hours after an animal was thrown out in the field the vultures would find it. They would stand on the body and pull it to pieces in the most revolting way. The ranchman told me he had seen them circle over a pair of fighting snakes, waiting to devour the one that was injured. They were grotesque birds. I often saw them walk with their wings held out at their sides as if cooling themselves, and the unbird-like attitude together with the horrid appearance of their red skinny heads made them seem more like harpies than before.

They were most interesting at a distance. I once saw three of them standing like black images on a granite bowlder, on top of a hill overlooking the valley. After a moment they set out and went circling in the sky. Although they flew in a group, it seemed as if the individual birds respected one another's lines so as not to cover the same ground. Sometimes when soaring they seemed to rest on the air and let themselves be borne by the wind; for they wobbled from one side to the other like a cork on rough water.

One of the most interesting birds of the valley is the road-runner or chaparral cock, a grayish brown bird who stands almost as high as a crow and has a tail as long as a magpie's. He is noted for his swiftness of foot. Sometimes, when we were driving over the hills, a road-runner would start out of the brush on a lonely part of the road and for quite a distance keep ahead of the horses, although they trotted freely along. When tired of running he would dash off into the brush, where he stopped himself by suddenly throwing his long tail over his back. A Texan, in talking of the bird, said, "It takes a right peart cur to catch one," and added that when a road-runner is chased he will rise but once, for his main reliance is in his running, and he does not trust much to his short wings. The chaparral cocks nested in the cactus on our hills, and were said to live largely on lizards and horned toads.

Valley Quail and Road-Runner.

It became evident that a pair of these singular birds had taken up quarters in the chaparral on the hillside back of the ranch-house, for one of them was often seen with the hens in the dooryard. One day I was talking to the ranchman when the road-runner appeared. He paid no attention to us, but went straight to the hen-house, apparently to get cocoons. Looking between the laths, I could see him at work. He flew up on the hen-roosts as if quite at home; he had been there before and knew the ways of the house. He even dashed into the peak of the roof and brought down the white cocoon balls dangling with cobweb. When he had finished his hunt he stood in the doorway, and a pair of blackbirds lit on the fence post over his head, looking down at him wonderingly. Was he a new kind of hen? He was almost as big as a bantam. They sat and looked at him, and he stood and stared at them till all three were satisfied, when the blackbirds flew off and the road-runner walked out by the kitchen to hunt among the buckets for food.

These curious birds seem to be of an inquiring turn of mind, and sometimes their investigations end sadly. The windmills, which are a new thing in this dry land, naturally stimulate their curiosity. A small boy from the neighboring town—Escondido—told me that he had known four road-runners to get drowned in one tank; though he corrected himself afterwards by saying, "We fished out one before he got drowned!"

Another lad told me he had seen road-runners in the nesting season call for their mates on the hills. He had seen one stand on a bowlder fifteen feet high, and after strutting up and down the rock with his tail and wings hanging, stop to call, putting his bill down on the rock and going through contortions as if pumping out the sound. The lad thought his calls were answered from the brush below.

In April the ranchman reported that he had seen dusky poor-wills, relatives of our whip-poor-wills, out flycatching on the road beyond the ranch-house after dark. He had seen as many as eight or nine at once, and they had let him come within three feet of them. Accordingly, one night right after tea I started out to see them. The poor-wills choose the most beautiful part of the twenty-four hours for their activity. When I went out, the sky above the dark wall of the valley was a quiet greenish yellow, and the rosy light was fading in the north at the head of the canyon. White masses of fog pushed in from the ocean. Then the constellations dawned and brightened till the evening star shone out in her full radiant beauty. Locusts and crickets droned; bats zigzagged overhead; and suddenly from the dusty road some black objects started up, fluttered low over the barley, and dropped back on the road again. At the same time came the call of the poor-will, which, close at hand, is a soft burring poor-will, poor-wil'-low. Two or three hours later I went out again. The full moon had risen, and shone down, transforming the landscape. The road was a narrow line between silvered fields of headed grain, and the granite bowlders gleamed white on the hills inclosing the sleeping valley. For a few moments the shrill barking of coyote wolves disturbed the stillness; then again the night became silent; peace rested upon the valley, and from far up the canyon came the faint, sad cry, poor-wil'-low, poor-wil'-low.

VIII.

POCKET MAKERS.

The bush-tits are cousins of the eastern chickadees, which is reason enough for liking them, although the California fruit growers have a more substantial reason in the way the birds eat the scale that injures the olive-trees. The bush-tits might be the little sisters of the chickadee family, they are so small. They look like gray balls with long tails attached, for they are plump fluffy tots, no bigger than your thumb, without their tails. One of them, when preoccupied, once came within three feet of where I stood. When he discovered me a comical look of surprise came into his yellow eyes and he went tilting off, for his long tail gave him a pitching flight as if he were about to go on his bill, a flight that reminds one of the tail that wagged the dog.

Nest of the Bush-tit.

There were so many of the gray pocket nests in the oaks that it was hard to choose which to watch, but one of the most interesting hung from a branch of the big double oak of the gnatcatchers, above the ranch-house, where I could see it when sitting in the crotch of the tree. While watching it I looked beyond over the chaparral wall away to a dark purple peak standing against a sky flecked with sun-whitened clouds. The nest was like an oriole's, but nearly twice as long, though the builders were less than half the size of the orioles. Instead of being open at the top, it was roofed over, and the only entrance was a small round hole, the girth of the bird, about two inches under the roof.

One might imagine that such big houses would be dark with only one small dormer window, and the valley children assured me that the birds hung living firefly lamps on their walls! I suggested that a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fireflies would be needed if that were the case; but when it comes to that, what bird would choose to brood by gaslight?

When I first saw the bush-tit in its round doorway, it suggested Jack Horner's famous plum, comical little ball of feathers! When first watching the nest the small pair put me on their list of enemies, along with small boys, blue jays, and owls. To go down into the pocket under my stare seemed a terrible thing. When one of them came with a bit of moss for lining, it started for the front door, saw me, stopped, and turned to go to the back of the nest. Then it tried to get up courage to approach the house from the side, got in a panic and dashed against the wall as if expecting a door would open for it. When at last it did make bold to dart into the nest it was struck with terror, and, whisking around, jabbed the moss into the outside wall and fled!

Seeing that nothing awful happened, the birds finally took me off the black list and allowed me to oversee their work, as long as I gave no directions. Sometimes both little tots went down into the bag to work together; surely there was plenty of room for many such as they. But it is not always a matter of cubic inches, and one morning when the second bird was about to pop in, apparently it was advised to wait a minute. There was no ill feeling, though, for when the small builder came out it flew to the twig in front of the door, where its mate was waiting, and sat down beside it, a little Darby by his Joan.

They worked busily. Sometimes they popped in only to pop out again; at other times they stayed inside as long as if they had been human housekeepers, hanging pictures, straightening chairs, and setting their bric-a-brac in order for the fortieth time; each change requiring mature deliberation.

One morning—after the birds had been putting in lining long enough to have wadded half a dozen nests—if my judgment is of any value in such matters—I discovered that the roof was falling in; it was almost on top of the front door! The next day, to my dismay, the door had vanished. What was the trouble? Were the pretty pair young builders; was this their first nest, and had they paid more attention to decorating their house inside than to laying strong foundations; or had their pocket been too heavy for its frame?

However it came about, the wise birds concluded that they would not waste time crying over spilt milk. They calmly went to work to tear the first nest to pieces and build a second one out of it. One of them tweaked out its board with such a jerk it sent the pocket swinging like a pendulum. But the next time it wisely planted its claw firmly to steady itself, while it cautiously pulled the material out with its bill.

If the birds were inexperienced, they were bright enough to profit by experience. This time they hung their nest between the forks of a strong twig which had a cross twig to support the roof, so that the accident that had befallen them could not possibly occur again. They began work at the top, holding onto the twig with their claws and swinging themselves down inside to put in their material; and they moulded and shaped the pocket as they went along.

After watching the progress of the new nest, I went to see what had become of the old one. It was on the ground. On taking it home and pulling it to pieces, I found that the wall was from half an inch to an inch thick, made of fine gray moss and oak blossoms. There was a thick wadding of feathers inside. I counted three hundred, and there were a great many more! The amount of hard labor this stood for amazed me. No wonder the nest pulled down, with a whole feather-bed inside! Why had they put it in? I asked some children, and one said, "To keep the eggs warm, I guess;" while the other suggested, "So the eggs wouldn't break." Most of the feathers were small, but there must have been several dozen chicken's feathers from two to three inches long. Among them was a plume of an owl.

POCKET NEST IN AN OAK

Much to my surprise, in the bush-tit's nest there was a broken eggshell. Had the egg broken in falling, or had a snake been there? One of the boys of the valley told me about seeing a racer snake go into a bush-tit's pocket. The cries of the birds rallied several other pairs, and they all flew about in distress, though not one of them dared touch the dreadful tail that hung out of the nest hole. As the snake was about three feet long, the pocket bulged as it moved around inside. There were four nestlings about a quarter grown, and the relentless creature devoured them all. The boy waited below with a stick, and when it came out, killed it and shook it by the tail till the small birds popped out of its mouth. If my broken eggshell pointed to any such tragedy, it cleared the birds of the accusation of being poor builders.

The nest, which the first day was a filmy spot in the leaves, by the next day had become a gray pocket over eight inches long, although I could still see daylight through it. In working, the birds flew to the top of the open bag and hopped down inside. I could see the pocket shake and bulge as they worked within. When they flew away to any distance, on their return they almost always came with their little call of schrit, schrit.

This nest was so low that I used to throw myself on the sand beneath the tree to watch it, taking many a sunbath there, with hat drawn down till I could just see the nest in the pendent branches, and watch the changing mosaics made by the sky through the moving leaves. When resting on the sand the thought of rattlesnakes came to me, for the brush on either side was a shelter for them, and they might easily have crept up beside me without my hearing them.