172 THE CONDOR Vol. XXII 
Suddenly, a big shape swings over the pool, and, directly before my eyes, 
a Cooper Hawk (Accipiter cooper’) perches on a willow bough. He twists his 
head in every direction, occasionally opening and snapping his beak; he sud- 
denly wheels about, displaying his satiny back and the four dark bands of his 
tail feathers; then, he plunges into the tules. 
But what is that long-continued song that never ceases—that song which 
has been so predominant that it has simply become a background for the inter- 
mittent calls of other birds? It is the jumble of the Long-tailed Chat (/cteria 
virens longicauda), whose yellow breast gleams through the willow thicket. 
For hours I have listened. to this bird, in the mornings and evenings when I 
have lingered by this pool, and never have I detected a single strain the motif 
of which seemed to have been borrowed from the song of another bird. Mimic 
he may be at times, but in the early part of June, from dawn to dawn—for the 
voice of the chat continues throughout the night—he mimics none of his fel- 
low birds: the rock wren, the desert sparrow, the grosbeak, and several other 
species, birds whose very characteristics are so dis-similar to his that their 
resultant musical expressions are in a category by themselves. Now the sub- 
ject of my discussion flies to another willow, flies low, with a silent, hawk-like 
glide, which soon changes to a flapping, awkward motion, accompanied by a 
loud beating of wings. In the rare intervals which break his spun-out melody, 
I hear a cheerful little song behind me, which is so warbler-like in character, 
that without difficulty I can transport myself, by closing my eyes, to the 
cedar-spired hill slopes of New England, in the month of May. Rising, I skirt 
the pool, and enter an open area bordering the east side of the trail. A dense, 
luxuriant tangle of low willow and high dog-bane grows upon this mesa, which 
iles between the pool and the immense pale vermilion wall of granite over 
which scintillates the first faint glimmer of the sun. As well as I may, I ad- 
vance through the thick, interwoven growth, the Chat following me, darting 
from willow to willow. Suddenly, I spy-a tiny, dark gray bird, an atom of a 
bird, with miniature half-inch tail, clinging firmly to a slender dog-bane stalk, 
while near him hover the male and femaie Lazuli Bunting (Passerina amoena). 
I could pluck the little bird from the stem as easily as I could pick a plum, but 
instead, I quietly steal away, only too glad to discover that bird-nesting runs 
along as cozily and serenely in the Grand Canyon as in an old-fashioned gar- 
den. 
I return to the pool just in time to see a pair of dainty little Arkansas 
Goldfinches (Astragalinus psaltria), drinking at the edge. These friendly 
birds do not object to my presence, but satisfy their thirst before flitting away. 
Scarcely have they flown, when I notice a female Black-chinned Hummingbird 
quivering before a loose flap of bark on a dead willow, and extricating from 
under the flap, threads of the inner fiber, a process which she repeats every 
three minutes, spinning away after each rapid task over a particular air-trail 
which probably leads to the recurved tip of a willow bough, on which a nest 
is In construction. Black-chins adapt themselves readily to their environment, 
and do not insist upon sycamore down for cradling their young, when syca- 
mores are not available. 
But now the sun has appeared over the red wall, the birds have retreated 
to cool coverts of willow and grape-vine, and only the irrepressible staccato 
ditty of the Chat permeates the silence of the glade. 
El Cajon, California, April 10, 1920. ’ 
