A Bunch of Texas and Arizona Birds. 
104 
as I rounded the bend, under the bee¬ 
tling crags, the same canyon wren, my 
first one, not dreaming what a favor he 
was conferring upon the man he had so 
often chided as a trespasser, let fall a 
few measures of his lovely song. How 
sweet and cool the notes were! Unless 
it was the sound of the brook in the 
Sabino Canyon, I heard nothing else so 
good in Arizona. 
But at San Antonio, on my way 
homeward, I heard notes not to be 
called musical, in the smaller and more 
ordinary sense of the word; as unlike 
as possible, certainly, to the classic 
sweetness of the canyon wren’s tune; 
but to me even more exciting and mem¬ 
orable. On a sultry, indolent after¬ 
noon (April 9) I had betaken myself 
to Cemetery Hill for a lazy stroll, and 
had barely alighted from the electric 
car, when I heard strange noises some¬ 
where near at hand. In my confusion 
I thought for an instant of the scissor- 
tailed flycatchers, with whose various 
outlandish outcries and antics I had 
been for several days amusing myself. 
Then I discovered that the sound came 
from above, and looking up, saw straight 
over my head, between the hilltop and 
the clouds, a wedge-shaped flock of large 
birds. Long slender necks and bills, 
feet drawn up and projecting out be¬ 
hind the tails, wing-action moderate 
(after the manner of geese rather than 
ducks), color dark, — so much, and no 
more, the glass showed me, while the 
birds, sixty or more in number, as I 
guessed, were fast receding northward. 
They should be cranes, I said to myself, 
since they were surely not herons, and 
then, like a flash, it came over me that 
I knew the voice. By good luck I had 
lived the winter before where I heard 
continually the lusty shouts of a captive 
sandhill crane; and it was to a chorus 
of sandhill cranes that I was now listen¬ 
ing. 
The flock disappeared, the tumult 
lessened and ceased, and I passed on. 
But fifteen minutes afterward, as I was 
retracing my steps over the hill, sud¬ 
denly I heard the same resounding chorus 
again. A second flock of cranes was 
passing. This, too, was in a V-shaped 
line, though for some reason it fell into 
disorder almost immediately. Now I 
essayed a count, and had just concluded 
that there were some eighty of the birds, 
when a commotion behind me caused 
me to turn my head. To my amaze¬ 
ment, a third and much larger flock was 
following close behind the second. There 
was no numbering it with exactness, but 
I ran my glass down the long, wavering 
line, as best I could, and counted one 
hundred and fifteen. 
An hour before I had never seen a 
sandhill crane in its native wildness (a 
creature nearly or quite as tall as my¬ 
self), and behold, here was the sky full 
of them. And what a judgment-day 
trumpeting they made! Angels and arch¬ 
angels, cherubim and seraphim! Per¬ 
haps I did not enjoy it, — there, with 
the white gravestones standing all about 
me. After all, there is something in 
mere volume of sound. If it does not 
feed the soul, at least it stirs the blood. 
And that is a good thing, also. I won¬ 
der if Michelangelo did not at some time 
or other see and hear the like. 
Bradford Torrey. 
