OLD RATTLER AND THE KING SNAKE. 371 



or see tlicm every time I go there. His only note now is a sharp 

 squeak of alarm, but a little later he will perch high up in some 

 tree near the lake and awake the echoes with his loud whistling. 

 High over my head, mere specks of shining white against the blue- 

 gray of the sky, I could see several gulls floating along on their 

 way to the reservoir, where hundreds of them often gather in the 

 open water that is usually found in the center. As I walked toward 

 the entrance of the park, on my way to the car, I heard, on some 

 cedars near the border of the lake, the gurgling music of a party 

 of goldfinches. They had on their winter coats of yellowish brown, 

 but their song and dipping flight made them easily recognizable. 

 Once you become acquainted with a few birds, every flutter 

 of a wing or cheep or peep becomes an object of interest and a 

 motive for many days in the open. It is very easy also to sentimen- 

 talize about Nature and to assume a patronizing air toward her, 

 but the more you know of her and her ways the sooner you get 

 over this. You can not help being impressed with the fact that 

 the life and ways of the animals and birds are, after all, in many 

 ways very like your ov/n. Birds, you will find, are very human 

 indeed, and show a wide diversity in disposition and habit. There 

 is one thing sure to follow an interest of this kind, and that is a 

 greater respect and care for wild life. The cruelty of egg-collect- 

 ing and the wanton destruction of birds for millinery purposes are 

 becoming less tolerable every year in civilized communities. 



OLD RATTLER AND THE KING SNAKE. 



By DAVID STARR JORDAN, 



PEESIDENT OF LELAND STANFORD JTINIOE UNIVERSITY. 



" I only know thee humble, bold, 

 Haughty, with miseries untold, 

 And the old curpe that left thee cold, 

 And drove thee ever to the sun 

 On blistering rocks. . . . 



. Thou whose fame 

 Searchest the grass with tongue of flame, 

 Making all creatures seem thy game, 

 When the whole woods before thee run, 

 Asked but — when all is said and done — 

 To lie, untrodden, in the sun ! " — Bret Harte. 



OLD RATTLER was a snake, of course, and he lived in the 

 King's River Caiion, high up and down deep in the moun- 

 tains of California. 



He had a hole behind and below a large, flat granite rock, not 

 far from the river, and he called it his home; for in it he slept 

 all night and all winter, "but when the sun came back in the spring 



