Old Friends and New 269 
have sufficiently gained my admiration and 
piqued my interest to inspire a hope that 
they may become friends in time, while 
other distinguished personages I have yet 
to meet; and this anticipation will greatly 
increase the pleasure when they are encoun- 
tered. In the first enthusiasm for birds when 
all are new, the relish of unexpected en- 
counters is often enjoyed, but as the years 
go on it becomes all too rare. Yet when the 
ornithologist at last hears a bird song for 
which he has waited for years, he feels young 
again and knows it for one of the delectable 
moments of life. 
Among the birds nearest to me I count the 
cafion wren, the Western meadowlark, the 
Arizona cardinal, and those companionable 
little birds the black phoebe and the vermil- 
ion flycatcher. In the cafions of the Santa 
Inez, in the rocky gorges and dry gulches of 
Arizona, and the barrancas of western Mex- 
ico down to the Isthmus, the cafion wren 
and the black phoebe have been my constant 
companions. True they change their sub- 
specific name in the books, but they are the 
same birds to me as I know them out of 
doors—and that is the only way one ever 
does know them. This phoebe is a quiet- 
