DEC 7 1923 
THE CALIFORNIA THRASHER. 
19 
the fashion known to all nations as the most thorough and 
most cleansing. 
Lo stays there longer than his white brother could pos¬ 
sibly endure those clouds of uprising hot vapor ; so long 
that you fall to wondering if he may not have succumbed 
to that suffocating heat. 
But no ; after a long, a very long time, there is a move¬ 
ment of the blanketed doorway, and there emerges a bronze 
statue, a statue glistening like polished copper ; Lo comes 
forth shining with the perspiration that has cleansed every 
pore. There is a rush to the creek’s edge — a plunge into its 
deepest pool (ice-cold from the melted snows that go toward 
its filling), and when Lo comes forth his body is all aglow 
from the quickened blood that now courses through his 
veins, and made fresh-skinned and clean by a bath that 
knows no betters. 
“ Dirty as a Piute ? ” Lo, I beg your pardon ! 
Humboldt, Nev. 
The California Thrasher 
RY ELI Z A BETH AND JOSEPH ORINNE LL. 
BIRD in the hand is not worth two 
in the bush, as any one can see 
by the indignation in his eye and 
the contempt of his whole atti¬ 
tude. However, if one can man¬ 
age to pick up a California 
Thrasher and subject him to the 
inquisition of the camera for just 
one minute for the express pur¬ 
pose of giving his photograph to 
the Land of Sunshine readers, 
he makes a pretty- fair picture. 
In the attempt to make him roost upon the finger against 
his will, the long legs of this notorious runner are invis¬ 
ible, but this disadvantage is more than offset by the full 
evidence of his magnificent beak, which is as strong as it 
is gracefully curved. The upper parts of this bird are a 
uniform dark, brownish grey, tail slightly darker than the 
back; throat whitish; breast, brownish grey, merging into 
the pale cinnamon brown of the belly-, while the beak is 
black. He impresses one as well dressed, even to the tip of 
his long black toes. Nature’s own devotee is he, for he 
scorns the habitations of man and all of man’s cultivated 
lands, though it is believed that an individual of such agri¬ 
cultural tendencies as himself will one day- become the 
California ranchers’ sworn and affectionate ally. At present 
