THE WATEK-OUZEL 291 



spring up around the mossy walls, or in front of 

 the door-sill, dripping with crystal beads. 



Furthermore, at certain hours of the day, when 

 the sunshine is poured down at the required angle, 

 the whole mass of the spray enveloping the fairy 

 establishment is brilliantly irised ; and it is through 

 so glorious a rainbow atmosphere as this that some of 

 our blessed ouzels obtain their first peep at the world. 



Ouzels seem so completely part and parcel of the 

 streams they inhabit, they scarce suggest any 

 other origin than the streams themselves ; and one 

 might almost be pardoned in fancying they come 

 direct from the living waters, like flowers from the 

 ground. At least, from whatever cause, it never 

 occurred to me to look for their nests until more 

 than a year after I had made the acquaintance of 

 the birds themselves, although I found one the 

 very day on which I began the search. In making 

 my way from Yosemite to the glaciers at the heads 

 of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, I camped in 

 a particularly wild and romantic portion of the 

 Nevada canon where in previous excursions I had 

 never failed to enjoy the company of my favorites, 

 who were attracted here, no doubt, by the safe 

 nesting-places in the shelving rocks, and by the 

 abundance of food and falling water. The river, 

 for miles above and below, consists of a succession 

 of small falls from ten to sixty feet in height, con 

 nected by flat, plume-like cascades that go flash 

 ing from fall to fall, free and almost chamielless, 

 over waving folds of glacier-polished granite. 



On the south side of one of the falls, that por 

 tion of the precipice which is bathed by the spray 



