THE O. & O. SEMI-ANNUAL. 5 
At last a plain, brown bird was seen skulking among the chap- 
arral, close to my feet, and soon he commenced his song. It was 
a Wren Tit. 
This bird has little more to boast of in the way of fine feathers 
than the Bush Tit, for its back is a dull brown, becoming rather 
ashy on the head and decidedly ashy on the cheeks, and its breast 
a pale drab with a slight brownish tinge which becomes decidedly 
marked on the flanks. The tail is long and generally held erect 
or at a right angle to the body, after the fashion of the Wrens, 
while the plumage is very loose, as is the case with many of the 
Wrens. The bird is seldom seen at a great height from the 
ground, and is very tame, permitting a close approach; but its 
habit of skulking among the dense underbrush makes it rather 
difficult to detect. 
There is probably no bird so abundant the year round in this 
vicinity as the California Brown Towhee(Ppzlo fuscus crissalis). 
In plumage and habits it is very dissimilar to the other species of 
its genus, and reminds one of the Catbird more than a Towhee. 
Unlike most of the Towhees, it does not frequent dense under- 
brush and thickets ; but comes into the towns and builds among 
the bushes and trees in the gardens. 
Its nest is usually a bulky affair, composed of fine twigs, root- 
lets and straws ; lined with horse-hair. The eggs are of a very 
pale blue color, spotted, scrawled and dotted with dark-brown 
and black, the markings generally forming more or less of a ring 
around the larger end. Many of the eggs also display faint shell 
markings of a lilac or purplish hue. This species has little more 
to boast of in plumage than the two preceeding species. Its song 
is, at best, a rather poor attempt at music, but the bird is never- 
theless attractive for its interesting ways and domestic habits. 
I fear that some of my eastern readers will begin to imagine 
that California is devoid of bright plumaged birds, as those I have 
described as distinctly Californian are all plain in color. Still we 
have our Orioles, our Tanager, our Violet-green Swallow and 
our Bluebird, beside many others which can rival the gayest col- 
ors of the east. In song, too, our birds can hold their own with 
all competitors. The House Finch bubbles over with ecstatic 
‘notes from our house-tops, the Vireo warbles in the maples, the 
Meadow Lark carols in the fields, and when evening comes, the 
Russet-backed Thrush sings a hymn to the setting sun, the purest, 
sweetest and serenest of all bird music. 
