A Bunch of Texas and Arizona Birds. 
of my hosts. He broke out in a tone 
of wonder. “Well, now,” said he (he 
spoke to the bird), “you are a peach.” 
And so he is. It is exactly what, in my 
more old-fashioned and less collegiate 
English, I have been vainly endeavoring 
to say. 
And to he a “peach ” is a fine thing. 
A vivacious living essayist, it is true, 
who is probably a handsome man him¬ 
self, at least in the looking-glass, de¬ 
clares that “male ugliness is an endear¬ 
ing quality. ” The remark may be true 
■—in a sense; by all means let us hope 
so, seeing how generous Nature has been 
with the commodity in question; but 
I am confident that the female vermil¬ 
ion flycatcher would never admit it. As 
for her glorious dandy of a husband, 
there can be no doubt what opinion he 
would hold of such an impudent reflec¬ 
tion upon feminine perspicacity and 
taste. “A plague upon paradoxes and 
aphorisms,” I hear him answer. “If 
fine feathers don’t make fine birds, what 
in Heaven’s name do they make? ” 
It was only two days after my discov¬ 
ery of the vermilion flycatcher (if I re¬ 
member correctly I was at that moment 
on my way to enjoy a third or fourth 
look at him) that I first saw a very dif¬ 
ferent but scarcely less interesting bird. 
I was on the sidewalk of Main Street, 
in the busy part of the day, my thoughts 
running upon a batch of delayed letters 
just received, when suddenly I looked 
up (probably I had heard a voice with¬ 
out being conscious of it) and saw swifts 
shooting overhead. People were pass¬ 
ing, but it was now or never with me, 
and I whipped out my opera-glass. There 
were six of the birds, and their throats 
were white. So much I saw, having 
known what to look for, and then they 
were gone, —- as if the heavens had 
opened and swallowed them up. It was 
a niggardly interview, at pretty long 
range, but a deal better than nothing; 
enough, at all events, for an identifica¬ 
tion. They were white-throated swifts, 
— Aeronautes melanoleucus. 
vol. xcti. — no. 549. 
97 
Three days later a flock of at least 
seventeen birds of the same species were 
hawking over the Santa Cruz valley, and 
now, as they swept this way and that 
at their feeding, there was leisure for 
the field-glass and something like a real 
examination. To my surprise (surprise 
is the compensation of ignorance) I saw 
that they had not only white throats, 
as their name implies, but white breasts, 
and more noticeable still, white rumps. 
Those who know our common dingy, 
soot-colored chimney swift of the East 
will be able to form some idea of the 
distinguished appearance of this West¬ 
erner: a considerably larger bird, built 
on the same rakish lines, shooting about 
the sky in the same lightning-like zig¬ 
zags, and marked in this striking and 
original manner with white. I saw the 
c5 
birds only four times afterward, the last 
time on the 17 th of February. The 
explanation of their sudden appearance 
and disappearance at such a season is 
beyond my guessing; but I am glad I 
saw them. Indeed I can see them now, 
their white rumps lighting up as they 
wheel and catch the sun. It pleases me 
to learn that it is next to impossible to 
shoot them, and that they are scarce in 
collections. So may they continue. 
They were made for better things. 
The most beautiful bird that I saw 
in Arizona (so I think, but one speaks 
of such matters under self-correction, 
as the mood changes) was the Arizona 
Pyrrhuloxia. I should be glad to give 
the reader, as well as to have for my 
own use, an English name for it, but 
so far as I am aware it has none. It 
has lived beyond the range of the ver¬ 
nacular. My delight in its beauty was 
less keen than naturally it would have 
been, because I had spent my first rap¬ 
tures upon its equally handsome Texas 
relative of the same name a few weeks 
before. This was at San Antonio, in 
the chaparral just outside the city. I 
had been listening to a flock of lark 
sparrows, I remember, and looking at 
sundry things, where almost everything 
7 
