FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



after which it took to its awkward legs again, and 

 shambled out of sight amid the underbrush. 



Henceforward, of course, I had new motives for 

 heading my day's tramp this way : I might see 

 the bear again, or, better still, the grosbeak. But 

 I never caught a second glimpse of either, though 

 once I must have been at comfortably close quarters 

 with the bear, to judge by certain asthmatic, half- 

 grunting noises that reached me out of the wood. 



Of my own knowledge, it is fair to admit, I could 

 not have presumed to speak with even this lim- 

 ited measure of assurance concerning the author- 

 ship of the noises in question ; but an old guide, 

 to whom I described them shortly afterward, 

 responded at once, "A bear " ; and old Sierra Ne- 

 vada guides, I feel sure, are reasonably competent 

 to speak upon that branch of natural history, al- 

 though, what is not surprising, I have not always 

 found them deeply versed in matters ornithologi- 

 cal. One of the best of them, for example, a man 

 with whom I often found it profitable to hold con- 

 verse, when I called his attention to a water-ouzel's 

 nest under one of the bridges, to which the anx- 

 ious mother, regardless of frequent passers over- 

 head, was hurrying every few minutes with an- 

 other morsel of food gleaned from the bottom 

 of the river, answered, " Yes, I have noticed it, 

 . — a robin's nest." 



196 



