BIRD NOTES AFIELD 



some of the saints had come to life. I looked up at the rude 

 old door separating the refectory, where I sat, from the relic- 

 room and half expected to see St. John, the beheaded, stand- 

 ing there before me. But it proved to be only a harmless pair 

 of sedate old owls. It was no doubt one of this same pair that 

 I encountered one fine moonlight night as I walked in the grave- 

 yard. The creature started out of the shadow of an adobe 

 wall, uttering a wild shriek, and flapped directly in front of me. 

 I have no doubt the wise old fellow laughed to himself to think 

 what a start he had given that foolish mortal who had no busi- 

 ness to be in such places, anyway. 



The mocking-bird was abundant about Capistrano, but it 

 was not in song during my stay there. Many of our most 

 familiar little birds about San Francisco Bay were equally 

 common also, such as the green-backed goldfinch, the Califor- 

 nia brown towhee, the spurred towhee, Nuttall's white-crowned 

 sparrow and the ash-throated flycatcher. The valley-quail was 

 common in the underbrush along the streams, and the mourn- 

 ing-dove flashed over the meadows upon its swift pinions. 

 Anna's hummer had sampled all of the old sacristan's flowers, 

 just as in the olden time when it had buzzed about the garden 

 and over the padre's head as he walked there in meditation. 



Yes, the birds and the flowers are about the only things 

 surrounding the mission that have not changed. Even the trees 

 have grown old — the olive trees planted in the early days, the 

 pepper trees of later date, and the immense prickly pear hedge 

 — these are all different; but the Indian tobacco plant is the 

 same as a century ago, hanging its yellow trumpet blooms by 

 the adobe wall, and the white-crowned sparrow travels with 

 the same rapid, even hop beneath it and sings the same plain- 



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