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ring with his jubilant song. "The Bugler" some one 

 has called him, and one thinks of the name whenever 

 listening to the song. He is a rather shy bird, creeping 

 in and out among the rocks, pausing a momc^nt to eye 

 the intruder curiously, tilt his tail, and scurry off again. 

 The busy search in every crack of the hard stone for 

 possible insects so absorbs him that he has no time to 

 speculate on what business the intruder may have there. 

 Enough for him if he can place a boulder between him- 

 self and observing eyes while he gathers food for his 

 mate or his brood. His long bill probes every moss- 

 covered crevice and tiny hole, and often you may see 

 him jerk a worm out of its hiding place and scramble up 

 the canon wall to his nest with it. A tiny hole is the 

 entrance to his nesting site, sometimes under a boulder, 

 sometimes far up the face of a cliff. He will fly down 

 from it, or rather drop down with closed wings like a 

 stone, but I have never seen him fly all the way up to 

 it. Sometimes he ascends by a series of short flights, but 

 oftener by hops and fluttering scrambles. He loves those 

 bare bleak rocks and sits upon them to sing, rather than 

 upon any vegetation there may be, hiding behind them 

 or on them, much as the lizards do. 



The only nest of this variety I have ever seen re- 

 sembled that of a pewee in material and construction, 

 but was much larger and more loosely put together. 

 The moss of the outside was fresh and green, in ex- 

 quisite contrast with the lining of silver plant-down 

 and with the gray stone cliff. In it were five diminu- 

 tive Wrens, the brightest, perkiest bird-babies imaginable. 



