5T,//A(T. 
v_xx 
Among the Birds of the Kosemite. 
751 
AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE. 
Travelers in the Sierra forests usu¬ 
ally complain of the want of life. “ The 
trees,” they say, “ are fine, but the empty 
stillness is deadly ; there are no animals 
to be seen, no birds. We have not heard 
a song in all the woods.” And no won¬ 
der ! They go in large parties with 
mules and horses ; they make a great 
noise ; they are dressed in outlandish, 
unnatural colors: every animal shuns 
them. Even the frightened pines would 
run away if they could. But Nature 
lovers, devout, silent, open-eyed, looking 
and listening with love, find no lack of 
inhabitants in these mountain mansions, 
and they come to them gladly. Not to 
mention the large animals or the small in¬ 
sect people, every waterfall has its ouzel 
and every tree its squirrel or tamias or 
bird: tiny nuthatch threading the furrows 
of the bark, cheerily whispering to itself 
as it deftly pries off loose scales and ex¬ 
amines the curled edges of lichens ; or 
Clarke crow or jay examining the cones ; 
or some singer — oriole, tanager, warbler 
— resting, feeding, attending to domes¬ 
tic affairs. Hawks and eagles sail over¬ 
head, grouse walk in happy flocks below, 
and song sparrows sing in every bed of 
chaparral. There is no crowding, to be 
sure. Unlike the low Eastern trees, those 
of the Sierra in the main forest belt aver¬ 
age nearly two hundred feet in height, 
and of course many birds are required 
to make much show in them and many 
voices to fill them. Nevertheless, the 
whole range from foothills to snowy sum¬ 
mits is shaken into song every summer; 
and though low and thin in winter, the 
music never ceases. 
The sage cock — Centrocercus uro- 
phasianus — is the largest of the Sierra 
game-birds and the king of American 
grouse. It is an admirably strong, hardy, 
handsome, independent bird, able with 
comfort to bid defiance to heat, cold, 
drought, hunger, and all sorts of storms, 
living on whatever seeds or insects chance 
to come in its way, or simply on the leaves 
of sage-brush, everywhere abundant on 
its desert range. In winter, when the 
temperature is oftentimes below zero, 
and heavy snowstorms are blowing, he 
sits beneath a sage bush and allows him¬ 
self to be covered, poking his head now 
and then through the snow to feed on 
the leaves of his shelter. Not even the 
Arctic ptarmigan is hardier in braving 
frost and snow and wintry darkness. 
When in full plumage he is a beautiful 
bird, with along, firm, sharp-pointed tail, 
which in walking is slightly raised and 
swings sidewise back and foi*th with each 
step. The male is handsomely marked 
with black and white on the neck, back, 
and wings, weighs five or six pounds, and 
measures about thirty inches in length. 
The female is clad mostly in plain brown, 
and is not so large. They occasionally 
wander from the sage plains into the open 
nut-pine and juniper woods, but never 
enter the main coniferous forest. It is 
only in the broad, dry, half-desert sage 
plains that they are quite at home, where 
the weather is blazing hot in summer, cold 
in winter. If any one passes through a 
flock, all squat on the gray ground and 
hold their heads low, hoping to escape 
observation; but when approached with¬ 
in a rod or so, they rise with a magnifi¬ 
cent burst of wing-beats, looking about 
as big as turkeys and making a noise like 
a whirlwind. 
On the 28th of June, at the head of 
Owen’s Valley, I caught one of the young 
that was then just able to fly. It was 
seven inches long, of a uniform gray 
color, blunt-billed, and when captured 
cried lustily in a shrill piping voice, clear 
in tone as a boy’s small willow whistle. 
I have seen flocks of from ten to thirty 
or forty on the east margin of the park, 
