NESTS AND OTHER MATTERS 253 



that it was much easier to carry in my eye the 

 comparative measurements of the two birds' bills 

 than the comparative measurements of the birds 

 themselves. Let me see the head in profile, and 

 I could name its owner almost beyond mistake. 



This method, as I say, I resorted to in the case 

 of my two desert thrashers, and little by little 

 (time itself being of great service in such mat- 

 ters), I settled the question with myself. And 

 still there remained a certain fact that cast a 

 shade of doubt over my determination. In Mrs. 

 Bailey's Handbook, the only authority I had 

 brought with me, Mr. Herbert Brown, after 

 twenty years' experience with Tucson birds, is 

 quoted as saying that the Bendire thrasher al- 

 most never sings, whereas the birds that I was 

 calling by that name were m song continually. 

 What was I to think? It seemed a case for a 

 gun. Without it, how could I ever be sure of 

 my reckoning ? I was in a box, as we say. But 

 there was a way out. There almost always is. 

 The two species lay eggs of different colors. I 

 must find them ; and with patience I did ; first, 

 the blue-green eggs of Palmer, and then (two 

 sets in one day), the whitish eggs of Bendire ; 

 and my identification of the owners, made before 

 the eggs were examined, turned out to be correct 

 in all cases. 



