174 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



difficulty. In all innocence, therefore, I stated 

 my case. It was possible, I admitted (thrice 

 lucky admission it is always politic to seem 

 modest, however one may feel), that the bird 

 was not a warbler, after all, though, if it were 

 not, I had no idea what it could be. 



Well, the next day I was out in the country 

 again, this time in a pecan grove, with tall seed- 

 bearing weeds standing by the acre under the tall, 

 leafless trees (a paradise for sparrows), when 

 I heard a chickadee whistling his four notes in 

 the distance. " How closely his music resembles 

 that of his relative as we hear it in Florida," 

 I said to myself. And this reflection set me 

 asking, " Where is that odd little titmouse, the 

 verdin, that was said to be common about San 

 Antonio at all seasons ? " And then, like a flash, 

 came the answer : " Why, man, that was a ver- 

 din you saw yesterday, out in the chaparral, and 

 mistook for a warbler." And so it turned out. 

 Red shoulder-strap and all, everything suited. 

 The verdin, by the by, is a distinctively South- 

 western species, not Parus, but Auriparus. My 

 bird had been a female, I suppose, showing less 

 yellow than her mate would have done. Perhaps 

 if I had seen him instead of her, I should not 

 have been so befooled. 



No sooner was the puzzle thus satisfactorily 



