IN A MISSION PATIO 



cornice in the corridors. He is a staid, demure little fellow, 

 with quiet manners, except for the occasional jerky up and down 

 tilt of the tail. His note is a quiet, short /sip, usually uttered 

 as he flits from perch to perch. His head is blackish, and his 

 back dark slate, this color extending around the throat and 

 breast, abruptly marked against the white of the under parts. 

 Hear the loud snap of his bill as he flits into the air from his 

 perch cind catches an insect on the wing! He is solitary, but 

 with an air of independent contentment, finding plenty to eat in 

 the mission garden. I saw him chase a tiny ruby-crowned 

 kinglet from the olive-oil press, giving several mock-savage 

 snaps of his beak by way of warning. He didn't propose to 

 have any intruders in his domain, especially if they were small 

 enough to be driven off without risk to himself. He seems to 

 be as much at home here as the old sacristan in his serape, a 

 relic of the olden times. 



Say's pewee is another member of the flycatcher family 

 very much in evidence about the mission patio. It is a brownish 

 gray bird, darker on the head and with the tail nearly black. 

 The abdomen is cinnamon color and there is an obscure buffy 

 bar upon the wings. He is fond of sitting upon some tall weed- 

 stalk in the court, at times fluttering in the air five or six feet 

 from the ground with a light, loose, moth-like motion of the 

 wings. Then all of a sudden he pounces upon some insect 

 hidden in the grass, and presently we see him upon his perch 

 devouring a luckless cricket. The call-note of Say's pewee is 

 a rather melodious pe wit, less sharp and metallic than the cry 

 of many flycatchers, and with something almost flute-like in its 

 quality. As we watch the bird he flies from his weed stalk and 

 perches upon the pointed tile covering of an old chimney, 



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