FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



ous shrubs ran down from the road, and I followed 

 it for a short distance. No pigeons. And my faith 

 was so weak, and my mood by this time so little 

 ambitious, that I soon returned to the road and 

 to my idle sauntering. For to-day it was enough 

 to loiter and breathe and look. There are other 

 things in the world besides band-tailed pigeons, 

 said I.^ 



And true to the word, I was soon close upon 

 a flock of golden-crowned sparrows. They were 

 no novelty. I had seen many like them. But these 

 were in song ; and that was a novelty ; a brief and 

 simple tune, making me think of the opening 

 notes of the Eastern white-throat, but stopping 

 short of that bird's rollicking triplets, ending 

 almost before it began, as if it had been broken 

 off in the middle, with a sweetly plaintive cadence. 

 Like the white-throat's, and unlike the white- 

 crown's, the tone is a pure whistle, so that the 

 strain can be imitated, even at a first hearing, 

 well enough to excite the birds to its repetition. 

 I proved it on the spot. 



Wren-tits were often near by, and of course 

 the same was true of the plain titmice. The tit- 

 mice, indeed, might almost have been called the 



1 A few days later I paid a second visit to the Spring, this 

 time on foot, and was fortunate enough to find a few of the 

 pigeons flitting about among the oaks. 



ii6 



