BIRD NOTES AFIELD 



Samuel's being the variety occurring along our coast and 

 Heermann's in the interior. Even a trained specialist cannot 

 always distinguish them, however. 



In attempting, in the brief limits of a single essay, to give 

 you even the most general conception of our California birds 

 I have undertaken an impossible task. The wheels of the ma- 

 chinery of a classification, necessarily inadequate and arbitrary 

 in many respects, creak somewhat despite their lubrication. 

 The anatomist aind the systematist are ever lurking in the back- 

 ground, and the odor of bird skins and preservatives has not 

 been wholly eliminated, but before we part I beg you to have 

 a glcuice with me at my friends in their native haunts, unmind- 

 ful of their place in the scheme of the check-list. 



We are in the redwoods upon a warm day in midsummer. 

 The little mountain stream is tumbling over its gray rocks with 

 a ceaseless rippling sound. The tall trees loom up all about 

 us, and the sunlight pierces the foliage only in occasional loop- 

 holes, forming here and there patches of gold upon the ground. 

 Away off somewhere, the sweet, tender note of the mourning- 

 dove is sounding cod coo, full of melancholy and dreamy love. 

 Suddenly a little band of rufous-backed chickadees comes 

 bobbing about with their merry, wheezy chatter and their rest- 

 less, dainty ways. The blue-fronted jay, in his handsome 

 blue dress and with his shovk^ crest, shouts explosively, and 

 then a russet-backed thrush whistles. I fancy all the other 

 birds are hushed in awe, for only the low murmur of the 

 water and the far-away sighing of the tree tops is heard as an 

 accompaniment. Rich and pure and joyous is the song. It 

 is a strain of triumph and aspiration, mellow and self-con- 

 tained. He who listens to it will be uplifted. I fancy it is the 



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