THE WATER OUZEL. 37 



hours of the day when the sunshine is poured down at the required 

 angle, the whole mass of the spray enveloping the fairy establishment is 

 brilliantly irised; and it is through so glorious a rainbow atmosphere 

 as this that some of our blessed ouzels obtain their first peep at the world. 

 Ouzels seem so completely part and parcel of the streams they inhabit, 

 they scarce suggest any other origin than the streams themselves ; and 

 one might almost be pardoned in fancying they come direct from the 

 livingwaters like flowers from the ground, — a kind of winged water-lily. 

 At least, from whatever cause, it never occurred to me to look for their 

 nests until more than a year after I had made the acquaintance of the 

 birds themselves, although I found one the very day on which I began 

 the search. In making my way from Yosemite to the glaciers of the 

 adjacent Alps, I camped in a particularly wild and romantic portion of 

 the Nevada cailon where, in previous excursions, I had never once failed 

 to enjoy the delighted company of my favorites, who were attracted 

 here, no doubt, by the extraordinary abundance of white water. The 

 river, for miles above and below, consists of a succession of small falls 

 from ten to sixty feet in height, connected by flat, plume-like cascades 

 that go flashing from fall to fall, free and channelless, over waving folds 

 of glacier-polished granite. On the south side of one of the falls, that 

 portion of the precipice, which is bathed by the spray, presents a series 

 of little shelves and tablets caused by the development of planes of 

 cleavage in the granite, and the consequent fall of masses through the 

 action of the water. 'Now here," said I, 'of all places, is the most charm- 

 ing spot for an ouzel's nest.' 



Then carefully scanning the fretted face of the precipice through the 

 spray, I at length noticed a large, yellowish moss-cushion, growing on 

 the edge of a level tablet within five or six feet of the outer folds of the 

 fall. But apart from the fact of its being situated exactly where one 

 acquainted with the lives of ouzels would fancy an ouzel's nest ought 

 to be, there was nothing in its appearance visible at first sight, to dis- 

 tinguish it from other bosses of rock-moss, similarly situated with ref- 

 erence to perennial spray ; and it was not until I had scrutinized it again 

 and again, and had removed my shoes and stockings and crept along the 

 face of the rock within eight or ten feet of it, that I could decide cei-tain- 

 ly whether it was the nest I was so eagerly seeking, or a natural growth. 



In these moss huts, three or four eggs are laid, white, like foam bub- 

 bles ; and well may the little ouzels, hatched from them, sing water songs 

 for they hear them all their lives, and also before they are born. I have 

 oftentimes observed the young just out of the nest making their odd gest- 

 ures, and seeming in every way as much at home as their experienced 

 parents, — like voung bees in their fii-st excursion to the flower fields. 

 No amount of familiarity with people and their ways seems to change 

 them in the least. To all appearance their behavior is just the same on 

 seeing a man for the first time, as when seeing him every day. 



