FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



however, is not so hopeless as at first sight it 

 looks. The electric cars are his salvation. My 

 very first ride carried me in three quarters of an 

 hour to a picturesque and measurably wild canon 

 out among the Mount Hamilton foothills east of 

 the city. The place is a park, to be sure, but a 

 park not yet spoiled by excessive improvement ; 

 and at such hours as I was there it proved to be 

 by no means overrun with visitors. In it there 

 were many birds, but nothing new. 



Another car conveyed me to the foothills of the 

 Santa Cruz Range. And this was better still, 

 for now my walk did not end in a cul-de-sac, but 

 could be continued till my legs or my watch 

 hinted that for this time I had gone far enough. 

 I would try the place again, I promised myself 

 as I came away, and would provide a day for it. 



This morning, therefore (March 26), after a 

 pouring rain overnight, I boarded the car again, 

 and at the end of the route began my day. 



And I began it auspiciously ; for I was hardly 

 out of the car before a bird moved in a bush at 

 my side, and, looking at it, I saw at once that it 

 was a flycatcher for which I had been on the 

 lookout, the Western flycatcher, so called. The 

 large family to which it belongs is one of the 

 most puzzling, and the genus Empidonax is far 

 from being the easiest of the genera ; but, as it 

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