The Crossbills 



commonest birds in the Sierras. The nearest I ever came to finding a 

 nest was near Victoria, B.C. The exact scene was a neglected, brush}' 

 pasture, in which about a dozen lofty Douglas firs and tideland spruces, 

 standing well apart, had escaped the woodman's axe. The date was 

 May 1 8th, and a couple of Crossbills tittering among the lower branches 

 of a nearby spruce had attracted my attention. Crossbills (of a pro- 

 vokingly neutral gender) were too common throughout this region to 

 deserve notice; but here was manifestly a pair. The male was a young 

 bird with touches of dull saffron only, while the female, though not duller, 

 was notably smaller, and also very much busier. She selected a twig 

 from a lower branch and made off with it through the air, closely followed 

 by her adoring and tittering mate. The pair disappeared into the center 

 of a giant spruce 200 feet away. 



Back they soon came and I watched the female at close quarters as 

 she tried first one and then another of the small dead twigs. The twigs 

 were damp, however, and therefore tough. After she had tried a dozen 

 or so, pulling and twisting and fluttering without success, she desisted 

 and flew to the ground. Here she found exactly what she wanted, and 

 made off again to the center of the distant spruce. By a system of 

 approaches I presently discovered the object of her care, a growing bunch 

 of twigs settled upon a thick, dishevelled bough at a point about eighty 

 feet up and eight feet out. 



The female never flew directly to the spot, but always lighted either 

 above or below it, and made her way by short, watchful steps. The 

 male, I found, did not always attend her closely, but often mounted guard 

 on some neighboring tree and tittered. And now and then he varied the 

 monotony of vigil by uttering a series of tender and endearing notes, 

 most of which came out in short staccato phrases. Song at last! And 

 this rare offering, this blooming of the cereus, was of the highest musical 

 quality. Here was an artist masquerading all these years as a sphinx! 

 Ah! how love unlocks the secret treasuries of song, and puts in play the 

 unsuspected chords. And why is love so brief? and the pursuit of pine- 

 nuts so inexorable? 



The most notable of these song phrases bore a startling resemblance 

 to the anxiety notes of the American Pipit [Anihus s. rubescens): ter- 

 wil'lier, terwil'lier, terwil'lier. This phrase it is which makes you think of 

 wrens. Indeed, if I had been in the dry country or up in the mountains, 

 instead of at sea level, in "Humid Transition," I should have ascribed the 

 sound, unhesitatingly, to the Rock Wren. 



Thus were the foundations of the nest-to-be laid in song. And lest 

 brethren of the oological fraternity (that sinister but solacing fellowship) 



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