FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



find a bird or two. And so it was ; he had gone 

 but a Httle way before he came upon a flock of 

 snowbirds. But they were not the snowbirds he 

 was accustomed to see in New England. Some 

 among them had black heads and breasts, with 

 rather dull brown backs, and a suffusion of the 

 same color along the sides of the body. Lovely 

 creatures they were ; perfectly natural, — true 

 snowbirds to anybody's eye, — yet recognizable 

 instantly as something quite new and strange. 

 And some were all of an exquisite soft gray, as 

 well above as below, except that they had bright 

 chestnut-brown backs and black lores, — that is 

 to say, a black spot on each side of the head be- 

 tween the eye and the bill. These were neater 

 even than the others, if that were possible, and 

 decidedly more striking a novelty. Our pilgrim 

 was at once in high spirits. What bird-man but 

 would have been ? On getting back to the hotel 

 and the Handbook, he would know what to call 

 his new acquaintances. So he promised himself ; 

 but as things turned out, the question was not 

 so simple as he had assumed. He was obliged to 

 see the black-headed one (the Sierra junco) again 

 to make sure of a detail he had omitted to note ; 

 while as for the gray one, it was not till he had 

 studied the birds and the book for two days that 

 he was fully settled how to name it. 

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