THE SAGE SPARROW. 117 
THANK God for the sage-brush! It is not merely that it clothes the 
desert and makes its wastes less arid. No one needs to apologize for the 
unclad open, or to shun it as tho it were an unclean thing. Only little souls 
do this,—those who, being used to small spaces, miss the support of crowding 
elbows, and are frightened into peevish complaint when asked to stand alone. 
To the manly spirit there is exultation in mere space. ‘The ground were 
enough, the mere Expanse, with the ever-matching blue of the hopeful sky. 
but when to this is added the homely verdure of the untilled ground, the cup 
of joy is filled. One snatches at the sage as tho it were the symbol of all the 
wild openness, and buries his nostrils in its pungent branches to compass at 
a whiff this realm of unpent gladness. Prosy? Monotonous? Faugh! 
Back to the city with you! You are not fit for the wilderness unless you 
love its very worm- 
wood. 
The sage has interest 
or not, to be sure, ac- 
cording to the level 
from which it is 
viewed. Regarded 
from the supercilious 
level of the man-on- 
horseback, it is a mere 
hindrance to the pur- 
suit of the erring steer. 
The man a-foot has 
some dim perception of 
its beauties, but if his 
errand is a long one he, 
too, wearies of his de- Taken in Douglas County. piers by W. Leon Dawson. 
: SAGE SPARROW ON NEST. 
vious course. Those THIS BIRD WAS NOT THE VICTIM OF THE MISFORTUNE MENTIONED 
who are best of all saa tec 
fitted to appreciate its infinite variety of gnarled branch and velvet leaf, and 
to revel in its small mysteries, are simple folk,—rabbits, lizards, and a few 
birds who have chosen it for their life portion. Of these, some look up to it 
as to the trees of an ancient forest and are lost in its mazes; but of those who 
know it from the ground up, none is more loyal than the Sage Sparrow. 
Whether he gathers a breakfast, strewn upon the ground, among the red, 
white, and blue, of storkbill, chickweed, and fairy-mint, or whether he explores 
the crevices of the twisted sage itself for its store of shrinking beetles, his 
soul is filled with a vast content. 
Here in the springtime he soon gets full enough for utterance, and mounts 
the topmost sprig of a sage bush to voice his thanks. In general character 
