MY FIRST WATER-OUZELS 



stroke, till he disappeared over the eastern wall of 

 the canon. " Well, well," said I, "this is my lucky 

 day." 



A few rods more, and I was out of the canon, 

 away from the noise of the brook, in the dry,' 

 boulder-sprinkled bed of the arroyo. Here I dal- 

 lied along, having still a considerable part of the 

 afternoon before me, noticing a pair of scolding 

 vireos (Hutton's), and the bright, orange-colored, 

 heavy-scented clusters of wallflower (a kind of 

 maidenhair fern was common, also), when all at 

 once I descried a pair of large birds soaring not 

 far off. I lifted my glass ; and behold, they were 

 golden eagles. And a splendid chance they gave 

 me, being at first extraordinarily near (for eagles), 

 and then rising in circles as the condor had done. 

 Sometimes the two were within the field of the 

 glass at once. For a while they seemed to feel a 

 lively curiosity about me, or about something in 

 my neighborhood, craning their necks to look 

 downward, and so displaying again and again the 

 golden brown of their foreheads. Wonderfully 

 athletic-looking birds they were, with that firm, 

 immovable set of the outspread wings — like the 

 condor in that respect, and very unlike the tur- 

 key vulture, whose tilting, unstable-seeming flight 

 identifies him from afar. 



And now what next.? I thought. But that was 

 107 



