A FLYCATCHER AND A SPARROW 263 



ever you notice men, you will perceive that it is 

 not the wonderful that attracts their attention, 

 but the novel and the out-of-the-way. The moon 

 and the stars they are used to, and quite properly 

 look upon with indifference ; but let a neighbor's 

 hencoop catch fire, and they cannot run fast 

 enough to behold the spectacle. 



Another and better thing I have accomplished 

 during my present brief stay in San Antonio : 

 I have heard and seen the Cassin sparrow. A 

 Washington ornithologist, familiar with this 

 Southwestern country, learning that I was on my 

 way thither, wrote to me in January : " On no 

 account return without hearing the Cassin spar- 

 row." To confess the truth, I had almost for- 

 gotten the injunction, emphatic as it was ; but a 

 few mornings ago, on my way back to the termi- 

 nus of the street-car line after a jaunt into some 

 old pecan woods, five or six miles out of the city, 

 I stopped short at the sound of a few simple bird 

 notes. What a gracious tune! And as novel 

 as it was gracious ! I had never heard the like : 

 a long trill or shake, pitched at the top of the 

 scale, and then, after a rest, a phrase of five 

 notes in the sweetest of sparrow voices, ending 

 with the truest and most unexpected of musical 

 intervals. For mnemonic purposes, as my custom 

 is (useful to me, if to no one else), I at once put 



