7G0 
Amonrj the Birds of the Yosemite. 
canes instead of guns. After hymns, 
prayers, and sermon they go home to 
feast, to put God’s songbirds to use, put 
them in their dinners instead of in their 
hearts, eat them, and suck the pitiful lit¬ 
tle drumsticks. It is only race living on 
race, to be sure, but Christians singing 
Divine Love need not be driven to such 
straits while wheat and apples grow and 
the shops are full of dead cattle. Song¬ 
birds for food ! Compared with this, 
making kindlings of pianos and violins 
would be pious economy. 
The larks come in large flocks from 
the hills and mountains in the fall, and 
are slaughtered as ruthlessly as the rob¬ 
ins. Fortunately, most of our songbirds 
keep back in leafy hidings, and are com¬ 
paratively inaccessible. 
The water ouzel, in his rocky home 
amid foaming waters, seldom sees a gun, 
and of all the singers I like him the 
best. He is a plainly dressed little bird, 
about the size of a robin, with short, crisp, 
but rather broad wings, and a tail of 
moderate length, slanted up, giving him 
with his nodding, bobbing manners a 
wrennish look. He is usually seen flut¬ 
tering about in the spray of falls and 
the rapid cascading portions of the main 
branches of the rivers. These are his fa¬ 
vorite haunts ; but he is often seen also 
on comparatively level reaches and occa¬ 
sionally on the shores of mountain lakes, 
especially at the beginning of winter, 
when heavy snowfalls have blurred the 
streams with sludge. Though not a wa¬ 
ter bird in structure, he gets his living in 
the water, and is never seen away from 
the immediate margin of streams. He 
dives fearlessly into rough, boiling eddies 
and rapids to feed at the bottom, flying 
under water seemingly as easily as in 
the air. Sometimes he wades in shallow 
places, thrusting his head under from 
time to time in a nodding, frisky way 
that is sure to attract attention. His 
flight is a solid whir of wing-beats like 
that of a partridge, and in going from 
place to jDlace along his favorite string 
of rapids he follows the windings of the 
stream, and usually alights on some rock 
or snag on the bank or out in the cur¬ 
rent, or rarely on the dry limb of an 
overhanging tree, perching like a tree 
bird when it suits his convenience. He 
has the oddest, neatest manners im¬ 
aginable, and all his gestures as he flits 
about in the wild, dashing waters be¬ 
speak the utmost cheerfulness and con¬ 
fidence. He sings both winter and sum¬ 
mer, in all sorts of weather, — a sweet, 
fluty melody, rather low, and much less 
keen and accentuated than from the 
brisk vigor of his movements one would 
be led to expect. 
How romantic and beautiful is the life 
of this brave little singer on the wild 
mountain streams, building his round 
bossy nest of moss by the side of a rapid 
or fall, where it is sprinkled and kept 
fresh and green by the spray ! No won¬ 
der he sings well, since all the air about 
him is music; every breath he draws is 
part of a song, and he gets his first music 
lessons before he is born; for the eggs 
vibrate in time with the tones of the 
waterfalls. Bird and stream are insep¬ 
arable, songful and wild, gentle and 
strong, — the bird ever in danger in the 
midst of the stream’s mad whirlpools, 
yet seeming immortal. And so I might 
go on, writing words, words, words ; hut 
to what purpose ? Go see him and love 
him, and through him as through a win¬ 
dow look into Nature’s warm heart. 
John Muir. 
