A BUNCH OF BRIGHT BIRDS 283 



mountain, had chosen the more romantic site, and 

 I often stopped to admire their address in climb- 

 ing about over the almost perpendicular surface 

 of the rock ; now disappearing for a few seconds, 

 now popping into sight again a little further on ; 

 finding a foothold everywhere, no matter how 

 smooth and steep the rock might look. 



The canyon wren is a darling bird and a mu- 

 sical genius; and now that I have ceased to 

 measure his song by my extravagant expectations 

 concerning it, I do not wish it in any wise altered. 

 His natural home is by the side of falling water 

 (I have heard him since, where I should have 

 heard him first, in a canyon), and his notes fall 

 with it. I seem to hear them dropping one by 

 one, every note by itself, as I write about them. 

 If they are not of a kind to be ecstatic over at a 

 first hearing (a little too simple for that), they 

 are all the surer of a long welcome. Indeed, I 

 am half ashamed to have so much as referred to 

 my own early lack of appreciation of their excel- 

 lence. Perhaps this was one of the times when 

 the truth should not have been spoken. 



My mention just now of the wren's cleverness 

 in traveling over the steep side of Tucson Moun- 

 tain called to mind a similar performance on the 

 part of a very different bird — a road-runner — 

 in the same place ; and though it was not in my 



