A-Birding on a Bronco

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.