276 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



Pyrrhuloxia did in the San Antonio chaparral. 

 It was like the joy that comes from falling sud- 

 denly upon a stanza of magical verse, or catch- 

 ing from some unexpected quarter a strain of 

 heavenly music. 



If Pyrocephalus was the brightest and Pyrrhu- 

 loxia the most beautiful of my Arizona birds, 

 Phainopepla must be called the most elegant, 

 the most supremely graceful, if I may be par- 

 doned such an application of the word, the most 

 incomparably genteel. I saw it first at Old Camp 

 LoweU, before mentioned, near the RiUito, at the 

 base of the low foothills of the Santa Catalina 

 Mountains. At my first visit to the camp, which 

 is six or seven miles from the city of Tucson, 

 straight across the desert, I mistook my way at 

 the last and approached the place from the far- 

 ther end by a cross-cut through the creosote 

 bushes. Just as I reached the adobe ruins, all 

 that is left of the old camp, I descried a black 

 bird balancing itself daintily at the tip of a 

 mesquite. I lifted my glass, caught sight of 

 the bird's crest, and knew it for a Phainopepla. 

 How good it is to find something you have greatly 

 desired and little expected ! 



The Phainopepla (like the Pyrrhuloxia it has 

 no vernacular appellation, living only in that 

 sparsely settled, Spanish-speaking corner of the 



