FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



mountain brook. If only he would have sung 

 for me ! 



One thing I must mention. I had never noticed 

 till yesterday that, in addition to his bobbing or 

 nodding habit, he practices sometimes a teeter of 

 the hinder parts, after the manner of the spotted 

 sandpiper and the water-thrush. And, seeing it, 

 I wondered again, what connection, if any, there 

 can be between life about the edges of moving, 

 rippling water and this wave-like seesaw. 



Along the road I was following, which itself 

 followed the course of the brook, — since it is 

 part of a river's business to show surveyors the 

 way, — were trees, shrubs, and ground flowers, 

 all interesting, and nearly all of kinds new to the 

 Eastern traveler. I looked with pleasure, as I had 

 done before, at alder trees (plain alder, for cer- 

 tain, bark, leaf, and fruit all telling the same 

 story) sixty feet or more in height, and as large 

 as good-sized New England beeches, to which, 

 as one looks at their trunks, they bear no small 

 resemblance. 



Tanbark oaks were here, — now and then a 

 truly magnificent specimen, — redwoods, of 

 course, sycamores, maples, of a kind for which 

 I had no name,^ madronas, now in full bloom 



1 Big-leaf maple, Acer macrophyllum^ as I have learned 

 since. 



