Mar., 1917 BIRDS OF THE HUMID COAST 49 



edge of the nest almost ready to fly — no wonder the father sang with a deep 

 note of home happiness ! But the next day the nest was empty, the restless 

 youngsters had flown, and remembering a bunch of brown feathers found on 

 the walk one morning, I feared that anxious days were in store for the fond 

 parents. 



While the Thrushes were familiar companions, other feathered neighbors 

 were seen only in passing. An Audubon Warbler stopped to sing near the 

 house the latter part of June, as if its family cares were over, while a pair of 

 Barn Swallows that were discovered sitting around were perhaps prospecting 

 for another year. A Bald Eagle seen by the fisherman flying over the house 

 the last of June was probably on its way to or from its fishing grounds. In the 

 forest thicket a stone's throw from the house, fleeting glimpses of the bob tail 

 of a Western Winter Wren and outbursts of wrennish song from dark impene- 

 trable interiors had put me into a very exasperated state of mind; but one 

 morning when the jolly little jumble was heard, from the doorstep I looked up 

 to discover a mite of a bird on the tip of a hundred foot stub across the clearing 

 — a fly on a mast ! Through the glass I could make out his plump little form 

 and bob tail and see him raise his head and move his throat as he sang his rapid 

 round. There he was at last, no wraith, but a flesh and blood wrenkin. 



From the front porch the familiar song of the Wren-Tit was occasionally 

 heard coming from the burned over, chaparral covered, mountain slope above, 

 a slope that from our distance below looked an open easy climb, but was so 

 densely covered with high salal, brake, and salmonberry bushes that one could 

 just about see a man's head above the thicket — quite the kind of place a Wren- 

 Tit likes. The hunter of the family was watching the slope carefully now as 

 he was planning a bear hunt in the mountains and a she bear and two cubs had 

 been seen there not many months before. It would do no good to watch the 

 slope for my bird, much as I longed to see it again, but its familiar strain, 

 keep, keep, keep-it, keep-it, keep-it, reiterated with variations, was always lis- 

 tened to with keen delight, recalling as it did charmed days in beautiful Cali- 

 fornia. The last of June, only a few days before I left for the Cascades, on go- 

 ing to the front door after breakfast I was surprised and delighted to hear the 

 familiar keep-keep-keep'r'r'r'r'r'r of Chamaea close at hand, and a moment 

 later its purring note came from some brush only two or three rods away, fol- 

 lowed quickly by the appearance of the delectable brown Wren-like form 

 twitching its long tail from side to side so vehemently that it almost tipped 

 over. Here it was at last at my very door ! 



That same week a Junco that I had been looking for ever since my arrival, 

 probably also wandering after the breeding season, came to my door, staying 

 on a log long enough for me to see its black head, dull brown back and pinkish 

 sides. Suggestive trills and aggravating flashes of white tail feathers were 

 finally followed by the sight of a pair of the birds busied among the brush and 

 logs of an old burn. One more bird which I had vainly tried to place in the 

 heavy timber came to the dooryard just before I left — the lovely little Siskin 

 from the mountains — lighting on top of a low hemlock and letting me walk 

 around close under him so that I could see his brown streaked body as he sang 

 his song, suggesting that of the Goldfinch with an added tang that makes it 

 sweet wild music to the ear of the mountain lover. 



From the front piazza the morning and evening concerts could be enjoyed 

 to the full. And in the medley by listening closely the indescribable split note 



