264 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



words to the tune : " She " (this for the long 

 trill), " pretty, pretty she." 



The birds were in some scattered mesquite 

 bushes (very bright now, in their new yellow- 

 green leafage), and I hastened to get through the 

 fence and make up to them. They proved to be 

 very small, and distressingly deficient in marks 

 or " characters," but I took such note of them as 

 I could, in a poor light. The main thing, for the 

 time being, was the song. That prolonged open- 

 ing note, with its sound of an indrawn whistle, 

 ought to be the work of a Puccea, I told myself, 

 remembering the Florida representative of that 

 genus, and the singers should therefore be Cas- 

 sin sparrows. 



The next morning, having refreshed my mem- 

 ory by a reading of the handbook, I took the car 

 immediately after breakfast for another visit to 

 the place. This, I should have said, was in the 

 rear grounds of an asylum for the insane. It was 

 Sunday morning, and as I crawled through the 

 fence and took up my position among the mes- 

 quites, I presently found myself under fire from 

 the windows and balconies. The distance was too 

 great for me to understand what was said, but 

 there was no doubt that the inmates of the insti- 

 tution regarded me as a queer one. However, I 

 believed in my own sanity (as things go in this 



