154 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVIII 
arral. The flora was Mexican, strange thorny bushes being interspersed with 
brilliant flower masses. The fences were made by pitchforks with cactus pads, 
the pads laid along a line on the ground rooting and branching till they grow 
to high impenetrable fence walls that in their season become beautiful with 
large yellow tuni flowers. When spring comes on the prairies of Texas, even 
the fences burst into bloom. 
It seems a world of flowers and birds, for as you go south you meet hordes 
of nocturnal migrants that have stopped to rest and feed by the way. Such a 
cosmopolitan assembly of birds ! Resident southerners jostling wings with 
passing northerners on their way from their southern wintering grounds to 
their northern breeding grounds. On the prairie near Corpus Christi there 
were among others both the northern and southern Vultures, and such south- 
erners as Harris Hawks, Desert Sparrows, Road-runners, Scissor-tailed Fly- 
catchers, Jackdaws, Pyrrhuloxias, Mockingbirds, and Caracaras side by side 
with such northerners as Dickcissels, Lincoln Sparrows, Lark Buntings, White- 
crowned and White-throated Sparrows, Upland Plover, and Warblers. Swifts, 
Swallows, Nighthawks, Cowbirds, Hummingbirds, Gnatcatchers, Marsh Hawks, 
Kingbirds, and other Flycatchers, Bob-whites, Wrens, Shrikes, Orchard Ori- 
oles, and Vireos added to the confusion. In the absence of high trees the 
bushes and thickets seemed crowded. Not every seat was taken, to be sure, 
but you were impressed by the numbers of birds and surprised by the incon- 
gruous assemblies that confronted you in the bushes. Mourning Doves seemed 
to be everywhere in the brush, many of them apparently passing the time while 
their mates brooded. Lark Sparrows were in squads singing in the bushes or 
feeding on the ground, their white tail crescents flashing out as they flew, 
Grasshopper Sparrows were chirring everywhere, and Mockingbirds were sing- 
ing and scolding and going about their daily matters. Once a whirl of birds 
passed, explained by a handsome white-rumped Harris Hawk. Now and then 
a brilliant Cardinal appeared on top of the chaparral and sang. 
But the song that dominated part of the brushy prairie was a new one to 
my ear and became the song of songs to me, for it is to the southern prairie what 
the rare song of the Pine-woods Sparrow is to the moss draped pines of Florida, 
and the chant of the Hermit Thrush to the pointed firs of the northern moun- 
tains. The Cassin Sparrow ! Even now, long years after, the name of that 
plain little brown bird comes with bated breath. How it recalls the first time 
it was heard ! It was on an ordinary sunny Texas morning that I walked out 
into ordinary chaparral prairie in an every day mood, all ignorant of the exist- 
ence of Peucaea cassini, when lo ! from the brown bushes in front of me up 
sprang a little winged creature, a ‘blithe spirit’, an embodiment of the deepest 
joy of life, and with head raised and wings outspread, from a well spring unde- 
filed poured out a song that held both the gladness of the blooming prairies 
and all the joy and hope of his mate on the nest. 
While such intimate pleasures were to be experienced among the birds of 
the neighboring prairie, interesting hints of the surrounding water bird life, 
both resident and migrant, were obtained at Tule Lake to the northwest and 
also along the shore line adjoining Corpus Christi. 
Tule Lake was alive with Grebes, Shovellers, Plovers, Sandpipers, and 
Terns, and a party of tall pinkish Avocets were wading out across the small 
waves, putting their long up-curved bills down delicately before them; while 
Stilts, all black above, all white below, stilted up on long pink legs, were going 
