MOBBED IN ARIZONA 207 



bushes, and newly sprung bluish-green grass (I 

 call it grass, provisionally, although, like almost 

 everything else hereabout, it has an unaccus- 

 tomed look) carpeted or half-carpeted the 

 ground. Here were the almost inevitable two 

 cactus wrens (how overjoyed I was at the unex- 

 pected sight of my first one, at San Antonio, 

 only three weeks ago, and how soon they have 

 become an old story!) perched, one here, one 

 there, at the top of branching cactus trees five 

 or six feet high, calling antiphonally, as their 

 habit is, in a coarse, unmusical, wearisome voice 

 the same churlish phrase over and over and 

 over. Nothing but the lonesomeness of the de- 

 sert, surely, could ever make that grating, repe- 

 titive monotony a pleasure-giving sound. What 

 the birds will do in the way of song when their 

 musical season arrives, if it ever does, 1 is more 

 than I know; but, belonging to so musical a 

 family, they ought to be capable of something 

 better than this, for music, of all gifts, is a thing 

 that runs in the blood. It would be a strange 

 wren that could not express his happiness in 

 some really lyrical manner. 



In the same neighborhood, as has happened on 

 several occasions, were a group of five or six sage 

 thrashers. It was in this very place, indeed, that 



1 Alas, it never does. 



