A-Birding on a Bronco

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.

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.

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.

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.