162 A-BIRDING ON A BRONCO. 



with a sad call, who flew on when he was still 

 only a lonely stranger. That oak top was made 

 memorable by the sight of a flaming' oriole, 

 though he came on a cold foggy morning and 

 answered my calls with a broken song and a 

 half-hearted scold as he sat with his feathers 

 ruffled up about him. Under the low spreading 

 branches of that tree the chewinks used to 

 scratch — I can hear the brown leaves rustle 

 now — the branches were so low that, if the shy 

 birds flew up to rest from their labors, they could 

 quickly drop down and disappear in the brush. 



On ahead, where the garden narrows to the 

 trail between the walls of brush, when I was 

 hidden behind a screen of branches, the timid 

 white-crowned sparrows used to venture out, 

 hopping along quietly or stopping to sing and 

 pick up seeds on the path. Back a few steps 

 was the tree where the bush-tits came to build 

 their second nest after the roof of the first one 

 fell in ; the nest which hung on such a low 

 limb that I watched it from the sand beneath, 

 looking up through the branches at the blue 

 sky, the canyon walls covered with sun-whitened 

 bowlders, and the turkey buzzards circling over 

 the mountains. 



Just there, in that small open place between 

 the trees, — how well I remember the afternoon, 

 — I saw a new bird come out of the bushes ; 

 the green-tailed chewink he proved to be, on his 



