A BUNCH OF BRIGHT BIRDS 279 



would have been so natural and so pleasant to 

 Lear. I could have spared a dozen or two of 

 thrashers, I thought (not brown thrashers), for 

 a pair of robins and a pair of bluebirds. But 

 southern Arizona is a kind of thrasher paradise, 

 while robins and bluebirds desire a better coun- 

 try, and seemingly know where to find it. 1 



In the last week of March, however, there 

 took place, as well as I could judge, a concerted 

 movement of Phainopeplas northward. They 

 showed themselves in the Santa Cruz Valley, 

 here and there a pair, until they became, not 

 abundant, indeed, but a counted-upon, every-day 

 sight. Those that I had heretofore seen, it ap- 

 peared, were only a few winter " stay-overs." Now 

 the season had opened ; and now the birds be- 

 gan singing. For curiosity's sake it pleased me 

 to hear them, but the brief measure, in a thin, 

 squeaky voice, was nothing for any bird to be 

 proud of. They sing best to the eye. " Birds of 

 the shining robes," their Greek name calls them ; 

 and worthily do they wear it, under that un- 

 clouded Arizona sun, perching, as they habitually 

 do, at the tip of some tree or bush, where the 



1 It should be said, nevertheless, that straggling flocks of 

 Western bluebirds lovely creatures were met with on the 

 desert on rare occasions, and once, at Old Camp Lowell, three 

 robins Westerners, no doubt passed over my head, flying 

 toward the mountains, in which they are said to winter. 



