A BUNCH OF BRIGHT BIRDS 289 



I had thought I was glad to have it so, feeling 

 that no voice could be good enough to go with 

 such feathers. In its way the feeling was justi- 

 fied ; but, after all, it would have been too bad 

 to miss the song. Curiosity has its claims, no less 

 than sentiment. And happily the song proved to 

 be a very pretty one ; similar to that of the 

 Eastern bird, to be sure, but less hurried (so it 

 seemed to me), less over-emphatic, and in a voice 

 less sharp and thin ; a very pretty song (for a 

 warbler), though, as is true of the Phainopepla 

 and most other brilliantly handsome birds (and 

 all good children), the redstart's proper appeal is 

 to the eye. So far as human appreciation is con- 

 cerned, it need make no other. 



I have heard a canyon wren in a canyon, I 

 said. It was a glorious day in a glorious place, 

 Sabino Canyon, it is called, in the Santa 

 Catalina Mountains. And it was there, where 

 the ground was all a flower garden, and the dash- 

 ing brook a doubly delightful sight and sound 

 after so much wandering over the desert and so 

 many crossings of dry, sandy river-beds, it was 

 there, amid a cluster of leafy oaks (strange oak 

 leaves they were) and leafless hackberry trees, 

 that I saw my first and only solitaire, Mya- 

 destes townsendii. I have praised other birds for 

 their brightness and song ; this one I must praise 



