184 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



still somewliat winter-bound, or at least, not yet 

 keyed up to concert pitch. 



A sparrow hawk beside the farmhouse before 

 mentioned allowed me to stand almost under his 

 low tree before he took wing, and when at last 

 he did so I had a feeling that he was rather sur- 

 prisingly long. I thought nothing more of the 

 matter at the moment, but later, discovering by 

 a reference to the handbook that a variety of 

 Falco sparverius, somewhat larger and with a 

 longer tail, had been described from this region, 

 I concluded it probable, not to say certain, that 

 my impression had been correct, and that the 

 bird was not my old acquaintance of the East, 

 but Falco sparverius deserticola. That would 

 make the new birds of the morning four instead 

 of three. 



All this while, it must be understood, there 

 was always the possibility that the train might 

 start at any moment, no positive information 

 upon that point being obtainable, so that I could 

 move about only within a narrowly limited area. 

 For a man thus tethered I was doing pretty 

 well, whatever my unornithological fellow-trav- 

 elers might think of my peculiar movements and 

 attitudes. And to increase my enthusiasm, as I 

 turned to go back to the train for dinner, in 

 crossing an irrigation ditch (now dry), bordered 



