A Glimpse of the Birds of Berkeley, 



Let me picture my canon in the 

 autumn time, when the open hill slopes 

 are covered with tar-weed and dead grass, 

 and the country roads are deep in dust. 

 There is a quiet, almost sacred feeling 

 about the place, shut in by steep hill 

 slopes, crowded with bay trees through 

 which the sun filters in scattered beams, 

 and carpeted with ferns and fallen 

 leaves. Bulrushes, with their long, 

 graceful filaments encircling their jointed 

 stems, spring from the tangle of shrub- 

 bery, and the broad, soft leaves of the 

 thimbleberry, now beginning to turn 

 brown, fill in the recesses with foliage. 

 Great slimy, yellowish green slugs cling 

 to the moist rocks, and water-dogs 

 sprawl stupidly in the pools. 



A loud, ringing call sounds above as 

 a flicker comes our way and announces 

 his presence with an emphatic ye up I 

 He is with us all the year through, and 

 an interesting fellow I have found him. 

 Not wholly a woodpecker, and yet too 

 closely related to that family to be 

 III 



