130 A-BIRDING ON A BRONCO. 



Later in the season, a neighbor whose ranch was 

 opposite mine showed me a phoebe's nest inside 

 his whitewashed chicken house. It was a mud 

 pocket like a swallow's, made of large pellets of 

 mud plastered against a board in the peak of 

 the house. Of course I could never prove that 

 these birds were my old friends, but it seemed 

 very probable. 



The smallest of my tenants was a humming- 

 bird. I saw it fly into a low spray, and it stayed 

 there so long that when it left I rode up to look, 

 and found that it was building on the tip of a 

 twig under a sycamore leaf umbrella, one whose 

 veining showed against the light. By rising in 

 the saddle I could just reach the twig and pull 

 it down to look inside the nest; but afterwards 

 I found so many other hummers who could be 

 watched with fewer gymnastics, I rested content 

 with knowing that this little friend was there. 



One morning, when on the way to the syca- 

 mores, I found an oriole's nest high in a tree. 

 Canello was hungry, but when permitted to eat 

 barley under the branches kept reasonably quiet. 

 There were two species of orioles in the valley ; 

 and not knowing to which the nest belonged, 

 I prepared to wait for the return of the owner. 

 The heat was so oppressive that I took off my 

 hat, and a bird flew into the tree with bill open, 

 gasping. After my hot ride down the valley the 

 shade of the big tree was very grateful ; and 



