The Inheritance 13 
breasted; several of the thrashers are equal or 
superior to our bird; the greentailed towhee 
is of course a much better singer than our 
chewink; the plain titmouse has a beautiful 
call note, superior to that of the Eastern 
tufted titmouse; Say’s phoebe has a softer 
note than our pewee, and the vermilion fly- 
catcher might almost be called a songster; 
the song of the water ouzel is one of the wild- 
est and most sylvan in Nature; and finally, 
the solitaire ranks high among American 
songbirds. As for the others, the Western 
robin is a shy silent bird and neither he nor 
the Western song sparrows seem to play the 
same familiar and lovable part in the out- 
door world that our Eastern birds do. While 
the thrushes are well represented in the 
West, their songs have seemed to me, at least, 
less in evidence than with us. I have heard 
nothing equal to our hermits and veeries in the 
Catskills or the wood thrush in the Long 
Island woods; nor have I ever heard in the 
West such splendid daybreak choruses as one 
hears in favoured localities in the East. To- 
ward the Pacific, one misses the bobolink, 
which however is moving westward; while the 
Baltimore oriole is replaced by three handsome 
birds—the Arizona, Bullock’s, and Scott’s. 
