180 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



A turn outside, as it grew lighter, showed that 

 we were at a station called San Elizario (a pleas- 

 ing name, surely), some three thousand two hun- 

 dred feet above sea-level. The westerly breeze 

 was a refreshment, and three or four ranges of 

 jagged mountains glorified the horizon. If we 

 must be delayed, the Fates had chosen a favor- 

 able place for us. 



I, for one, soon began to feel reconciled to 

 the turn affairs had taken, and went back to the 

 car for an opera-glass. It must be a dull day in 

 Texas when a tender-footed bird-gazer cannot 

 find at least one novelty, and till the " first call 

 for breakfast " I would be out trying my luck. 



An adobe building, windowless and unoccu- 

 pied, stood not far off, and near it was a cotton- 

 wood tree, still holding, in spite of all those Texas 

 winds, part of its last season's crop of dry leaves. 

 I walked in that direction, and at the moment 

 three birds, with musical, goldfinch-like twitters, 

 flew into the tree. A glance showed them to be 

 not goldfinches, but small birds of the purple finch 

 group, very bright and rosy (the two males), 

 and thickly streaked underneath. "The house 

 finch ! " I exclaimed. 



This is a Western beauty, greatly beloved for 

 its color, its music, and its engaging familiarity, 

 by all to whom it is a neighbor. I had read of 



