NESTS AND OTHER MATTERS 255 



questioning it, that the mockingbird is only a 

 nobler kind of thrasher. And thrashers, the 

 mocker included, are only larger kinds of wrens. 



Arizona is the wrens' country. During my 

 short stay in Tucson I have seen ten species : the 

 sage thrasher, the Western mockingbird, the 

 Bendire thrasher, the Palmer thrasher, the cris- 

 sal thrasher, the cactus wren, the rock wren, the 

 canyon wren, the Baird wren, and the interior 

 tule wren. 



The sage thrashers, whose mysterious silence 

 was commented upon in a previous article, are 

 only now beginning to find their voices ; for they 

 are still (March 21) in the desert, though they 

 will go elsewhere to breed. Two days ago, while 

 returning from the Killito Valley, I came upon 

 a group of them, and to my great pleasure two 

 or three were in song ; not letting themselves 

 out, to be sure, but running over a medley of 

 a tune under their breath in a kind of dumb 

 rehearsal. I could barely hear it, but I saw at 

 once why the birds, for all their short bills and 

 unthrasher-like ways, are called sometimes sage 

 thrashers and sometimes mountain mockingbirds. 

 I hope their sotto voce preludings will not out- 

 last my stay among them. 



One of my particular favorites here is the Say 

 phcebe. From the first he took my fancy. All 



