STUDENT DAYS 



45 



group of song-birds represents the summit of 

 development in bird life. For instance, the family 

 of thrushes is believed by some to be at the pin- 

 nacle, and others assign that place to the family 

 of crows, but there is no difference in opinion as 

 to the entire group-position. 



Now, throughout the sub-order of song-birds 

 there crop out habits which indicate at least a 

 likeness to ancestral forms. I have mentioned 

 the case of the water-thrush. Here is a bird near 

 the summit in the scale of development of bird 

 life, an example of a high type of bird structure, 

 whose powers of song are among the best of his 

 kind, but whose habits are aquatic, and whose very 

 motions suggest at once an affinity with a very 

 distant family — the sandpipers. 



Again, one cannot see a nuthatch climbing a 

 tree without referring him to the order of wood- 

 peckers {^PicidcB), and yet he too is high in the 

 list of song-birds. Who has ever seen a shrike 

 or butcher-bird kill a small bird or mouse and 

 not thought of hawklike habits ; and the water- 

 ouzel, common in the streams of Colorado and 

 the Sierras, while near to the family of thrushes, 

 is as truly aquatic in its habits as are the ducks. 

 John Muir, on page 277 of his book " The Moun- 

 tains of California " in his charming account, has 

 given us so vivid a picture of the life and beauty 

 of this little creature that I fear to dwell on it 



