88 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT 



restless bobbing antics she gives me a yet more 

 funny song which, once heard, can never be 

 forgotten, and which has been well character- 

 ized by Florence Merriam Bailey as "the most 

 unbirdlike of machine-made tinklings," a shrill, 

 metallic twitter, " Kree kree kree kree." 

 She has such pretty speckles on the breast of 

 her grayish brown body and such a well-defined 

 and prominent streak of white over the eye 

 that you cannot, having seen her movements 

 and heard her song, ever mistake her for any 

 other bird. The bill, too, is distinctive, being 

 exceptionally long (equaling the length of the 

 head) for so plump and tiny a bird. It is slightly 

 decurved at the tip and well adapted to pull 

 the spiders, beetles, and day-hiding moths from 

 the deep cracks in the rocks. 



The rock wren is among our most widely dis- 

 tributed of Western birds, choosing her home 

 amidst a variety of environmental conditions 

 that puts her in a class by herself. This restless 

 little rock-dweller makes herself as much at 

 home among the sun-scorched rocks of the 

 silent desert wildernesses as on the boulder- 

 strewn hills of the moist coastal slopes; she 



