278 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



studied movements of a dance. I think I never 

 saw one of the birds so far forget itself as to take 

 a direct, straightforward course from one point 

 to another. No matter where they might be 

 going, though the flight were only a matter of a 

 hundred yards, they progressed always in pretty 

 zigzags, making so many little, unexpected, in- 

 decisive tacks and turns by the way, butterfly 

 fashion, that you began to wonder where they 

 would finally come to rest. 



The two birds first seen the female in lovely 

 gray were evidently at home about the camp. 

 The berry-bearing parasitic plants in the mes- 

 quites seemed to furnish them with food, and 

 no doubt they were settled there for the season ; 

 and at least two more were wintering out among 

 the Chinese kitchen gardens, not far away. And 

 some weeks afterward I came upon a third pair, 

 also in a mesquite grove, on the Santa Cruz side 

 of the desert. But though in the two river val- 

 leys I passed a good many hours in their society, 

 I never once heard them sing, nor, so far as I 

 can now recall, did they ever utter any sound 

 save a mellow pip, almost exactly like a certain 

 call of the robin ; so like it, in fact, that to the 

 very last I never heard it suddenly given, but 

 my first thought was of that common Eastern 

 bird, whose voice in those early spring days it 



