;,ordan] A STANFORD GARDEN AND ITS TENANTS 201 



and from then on kept the count perfectly. Sitting in the sun- 

 shine at the end of a great oak limb, he took special joy in shrieking 

 out the staccato lines again and again. 



Our Guatemala parrot with the green head never learned to 

 speak, but was greatly interested in music. When left alone 

 in the room with the graphophone, he would strike the key and 

 keep up a creditable running accompaniment of his own, but 

 occasionally losing the note he would break out into a most 

 discordant squawk — with which, in fact, he generally closed his 

 performance. Another parrot of a different species (owned by a 

 little girl from Guatemala) would solemnly repeat long Latin 

 responses from the Mass, winding up gaily with "Vamos a los 

 toros."* 



To the garden recently came two new tenants, less exotic than 

 the monkey and the parrot, but by no means indigenous to Cali- 

 fornia. The one is the Louisiana squirrel, much like the eastern 

 grey squirrel, but smaller and with underlying wash of orange 

 brown. Like all his brethren he seems to need an audience, and 

 watches the spectator as though craving admiration. Between 

 him and the cats there is a perpetual feud. Meanwhile the wood- 

 peckers on their intermittent returns feel outraged by his raid 

 upon their storehouse in the big oak and scold vociferously over 

 his intrusion. 



The Silver Squirrel of California, the largest and handsomest 

 of our members of the tribe, is a shy animal, unfortunately, and 

 never leaves his haunts in the upland forests. Our new friend 

 belongs no doubt to the overflow from Golden Gate Park in San 

 Francisco where his sociable species has been acclimated, and 

 whence it is now making its way down the Peninsula, f 



The other newcomer, the Opposum, is a beast of very different 

 disposition, sullen in temper and sulking about by night, with no 

 love for man and no human trait beyond a taste for chickens. 

 Man in return finds him good only when properly roasted, Mary- 

 land style, under which circumstances he has much the flavor of a 

 sucking pig. Native throughout the Southern states, this interest- 

 ing creature is finding for himself a congenial home in our region 

 to which some one has purposely brought him, with an eye to 

 future "possum roasts." 



*"Let us go to the bull fight." 



fWith all forms of this type as well as some others in America, certain 

 individuals are melanistic glossy black throughout and exceedingly handsome. 



