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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



second and a third time she signaled, and now he very 

 circumspectly approached the cascade that hid the nest, 

 flitting hesitatingly from rock to rock until he was almost 

 beside her. But suddenly his fears again overcame his 

 courage and he darted precipitately back to the place from 

 which he had started. He was n't going to risk his neck, 

 not he! This churlish behavior seemed to rouse the ire 

 of his spouse. Instantly she lit beside him and running 

 her bill several times vigorously into his fluffy plumage 

 she took his catch of May-flies from him and carried 

 them to the hungry nestlings. Her example no less than 

 the little explosion of wifely indignation seemed to recall 

 him to a sense of his duty. My presence was soon ignored, 

 and he came and went as regularly as she. One of the 

 accompanying photographs (Plate XIX) shows him with 

 a May-fly in his bill, ready to dart behind the fall. His 

 whole attitude — the uptilt of the stubby tail, the poise of 

 the head and body — suggest something of the alertness 

 that characterizes the water-ouzel at all times. The grace 

 and swiftness of the mountain stream have passed into 

 the bird's movements. The dash and music of its waters 

 have sung themselves into his being. And there are mo- 

 ments, even in his busy life, when he likes to stand on a 

 moss cushion and watch the stream glide by. (Plate XX.) 



The little domestic episode described above, of course, 

 does not embody anything that is peculiar in the water- 

 ouzel's conception or performance of family duty. I have 

 observed a disposition on the part of at least one other 

 pair of birds to hold each other to a certain standard of 

 domestic conduct. This occurred in the case of a pair of 

 red-eyed vireos (Vireo olivaceus) who had built their 

 nest in a flowering dogwood on the grounds of the Penn- 



