116 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XIV 
with the sunlit l)ranch below, that the only wonder was that tolinici had ever 
been se])arate(l from his hackgronnd. For it was he, the lovely little IMacgillivray 
Warbler, an old friend of the Sierra and close relative of Philadelphia, the 
mtnirner of the east : a most charming bird, when he sat on a branch in the snn 
and threw ii]) his head to sing his rich finch-like song. A few days later under 
the cottonw(K)ds in a dense tangle of wild plum, wild rose, maple, and poison ivy, 
tolimei was encountered in a still more attractive role. The absorbed musician 
was now the an.xions guardian of the nest. He and his mate with food in their 
hills circled around the intruder chipping and switching their tails noncom- 
mittally. When they i)assed through a patch of sunlight the green on their backs 
warmed up prettily, and when the female went to a distance the white spots on her 
eyelids ])roved a good mark for an intimate friend to follow. And — there was 
the nest ! ( )nly about a foot aliove the ground in a small bush overgrown with 
clematis the pretty enj) held four ])rccions but nndeniahly plain nestlings with 
fuzzy heads and yellow hills. 
In wandering about the grove we sometimes met a secretive ipair of birds 
with a suggestive billfnl flying swiftly where we could not follow, or found a 
feathered parent trying to get its unduly trustful young out of our j)ath — among 
them, robins, wrens, and towhees — and one day — beside the road outside the 
grove — we were stopped by the pitiful cries of a ])air of Catbirds whose last 
young one had just been killed. Its little headless body was lying in the nest 
hearing mute testimony to the horrid act of some pitiless prowler. Eastern Cat- 
birds seemed singularly out of place here, among Macgillivra}^ Warblers, Audubon 
d'hrnshes, lllack-headed (;rosl)eaks. Mountain lllnebirds, \dolet-green Swallows, 
and other westerners, but they were near the limit of their southwestern range. 
Near the edge of the grove a Red-naj)ed Sa])sucker whose family were out 
of the nest was seen a numher of times Hying from a .stub diagonally to the 
ground where, on investigation, there proved to he a colony of ants. 
Outside the grove the arid sagelu'ush fiat dotted with piuon pine and juniper 
marked ofif bv the water line of the creek and its irrigation ditches offered con- 
genial homes for the WModhouse Jay and the green towhee : and a stealth}^ brood- 
ing green towhee with rufous crown and white chin much to our delight was 
caught slipping from her uest in a clematis-clad sagehush near the ground. About 
the clumps of red gilia bordering the woods, llroad-tailed Hummingbirds whizzed 
noisilv, darting off with such lightning speed that they were not followed home, 
(loldfinches often passed over, and one ]:)arty consisting of a male and several 
females flew down to a cliff rose and the male began tweaking out the long-tailed 
car]:)els of cercocari)us. 
From the sagebrush we looked up over the foothills to the timbered moun- 
tains above, the old hunting grounds of the Taos Indians, and from the ridges 
and the canyons in the evenings came the familiar peent of nighthawks, and that 
most deliciously .soothing note of we.stern twilights, poor-xaill, poor-will, poor- 
laill, poor-7aill-low. 
