::::::::»x TWO BIRD -LOVERS IN MEXICO B::".-": 



or vivacious than the well-named Pyrocej)licdus. How 

 we longed to see him at home, w^hen building his nest, 

 but as we could not wait for him until May, we could 

 only feast our eyes upon his beauty and listen for some 

 hint of his love-notes. 



Enormous grackles flocked among the upper 

 branches of the willows, their rich notes bubbling and 

 gurgling forth in a constant stream. A low adobe 

 wall, less than a foot in height, shut out the marsh 

 from the garden, and, as we approached this, a Belted 

 Kingfisher flew to a stake and rattled loudly, then 

 dived and began his morning's fishing. Like ourselves, 

 he was probably a winter sojourner from the North, 

 but before we returned in April something would have 

 whispered to him that the ice on his mill-pond was 

 breaking up, and one moonlight night he would spring 

 into the air and beat steadily toward the Rio Grande, 

 heedless of fish or rest, until he reached the branch 

 which, year after year, has bent beneath his weight. 

 The roses and orange blossoms will then be many 

 leagues to the southward, but could the bird feel as 

 we, would he not feel a keener thrill at the sight of 

 the first arbutus pushing up by the snow-bank, just 

 as our pulses leap more quickly at the thought of the 

 good old virile talk and laughter echoing through the 

 keen spring air of the bird's Northern fishing-grounds 

 than at the smooth, drowsy sound of the Mexican 

 tongue ? One may travel to the ends of the earth and put 



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