The Brown Creepers 
Taken in Fresno County Photo by the Author 
“GENERAL WASHINGTON” 
THE GIANT TREE OF THE MCKINLEY GROVE, PARTIALLY DESTROYED BY FIRE 
anyone mount triumphantly these aspiring tree-boles, way, way up into 
the blue, without growing the soul of a poet? Hark! Tew, tewy, tewy, 
ping, tewy ,—an angel ditty lisped in the tree-tops where the tender green 
fir-fronds melt into the sky—some Warbler, 1 guess; the Hermit, perhaps, 
kcc z, 
rounding out his unsaid devotions. And again, nits swee 
like a garland of song caught up at either end and made fast to the ether. 
Xo! Would you believe it! It is our prosy clerkling! He has turned 
fay, and goes caroling about his task as blithely as a bejeweled artiste 
with nothing to do. Love? Yes; love of the woods, for it is the middle 
of September. 
All of which leads me to apologize for the rude epithets previously 
used; for one who can sing belongs to the immortals; and never again 
will we judge a brother harshly, for who knows the vaulting heart of the 
seeming plodder! 
The ordinary, working note of the Tawny Creeper is a faint tsip, 
and this is varied from time to time by a longer double note, tsue tsee 
(of a resonant quality which cannot be made to appear in the transcript). 
655 
