102 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



CO in myriads, and should the migrating spirit lay hold upon the hordes 

 of the northern city, there is no preventing them from overrunning 

 "our Italy" as well. 



The grackles, great, bronzed, saucy fellows, called Brewer's black- 

 birps out here by way of courtesy, fill this yard with their chatter 

 throughout the winter, and an occasional redwing, bound to the seaside 

 marshes of the southern end of the state, flutes his silvery note from 

 the top of a tall walnut. But all these and many more, such as the 

 goldfinches and humming birds, are more or less acquainted with and 

 accustomed to the sight and presence of people moving about their 

 nesting places, so my curiosity was aroused when, one day last sum- 

 mer, my wife called me into the garden to see the nest of a "new bird." 



Sure enough, there in the heart of a rosebush some twelve feet in 

 height was the swinging home of a bush-tit, while from a nearby 

 oleander came the contented "twit, twit," of its owner as she diligent- 

 ly searched the gray trunk for that pest of the California rancher — 

 black scale. The nest seemed fully complete, and presently another 

 bird joined the one in the flowering tree, seemingly as intent on its 

 work as though we had been out of sight and out of mind. Investiga- 

 tion with one long fore-finger showed that no eggs had been laid> 

 though the pair came as anxiously about the little home when we ap- 

 proached it as if there had been a nestful of pearly eggs in its downy 

 bottom. How long they had been occupied in making this home, no- 

 body about the place seemed to know; in fact no one noticed them un- 

 til we came, though children played through the old yard almost every 

 hour of the day, and some one or more of the family usually spent 

 some time in pruning and training the various plants. On account of 

 this the birds must have been very quiet, doing most of their work in 

 silence — a condition of affairs quite contrary to their own habits w^hen 

 among the oak groves where they are very noisy. This will seem to 

 show, then, that they had adapted themselves to the circumstances 

 which they found round about — but, first of all, I would like to know 

 what brought the little gray coats to the city in the beginning. There 

 were no heavy winds which might have blown them in off the hills, in 

 fact no storms of any kind, so it may well have been merely curiosity 

 that set them down in what doubtless seemed to them very like some 

 of the wildwood thickets they had known in previous nesting seasons. 



Unfortunately, I was permitted to see the end of this charming little 

 domestic drama, for some miscreant of a boy took nest and limb away 

 with him one night, and the birds deserted the old garden for all time. 

 They had laid no eggs, for which I was glad because the boy would 

 find none when he opened the home he so ruthlessly destroyed. This 

 is the only time I have ever heard of this bird leaving the borders of 

 the woodland, and if there is any one who has known of such an in- 

 stance I should be very glad to hear from them concerning it. 



