10 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
es. was told that in the winter most 
of the bids go to the monntans; how¬ 
ever in the center of the state, during 
this same month 1 found plenty of them 
staying about the home of a bird-loving 
family of friends. The feathered creat¬ 
ures, too, know who love them. How¬ 
ever, perhaps they all have their quiet 
retiring time of subcommunion, as all 
beings must in order to have a healthy, 
natural, spiritual life! 
At the end of February came a change. 
We were strolling up Main Street of 
Riverside, California, enjoying the lovely 
sun-shine and the balmy morning air, 
when we were brought to a standstill by 
the song of a bird which was hidden in 
the dense foliage of a clump of trees and 
shrubbery at the corner of the grounds 
of a handsome residence. The bird was 
not ten feet away from the inner edge of 
the sidewalk. 1 recognized the familiar 
chou-chou of the catbird’s lay, but no 
catbird ever trilled out such a prolong¬ 
ed profusion of sweet melody. It was 
glorious! and I knew instantly it was 
the mocking-bird, singing as no mock¬ 
ing-bird in a cage ever sings! Freedom 
and perfect abandon to the bewtching in¬ 
fluences of the morning were in its notes. 
The bird sat not over six feet above mv 
•/ 
head, and during the ten minutes we 
stood by it and listened, it showed no 
sign of our presence. It would sing 
awhile, then stop awhile, then shake it¬ 
self, and begin all over again. It was 
evidently absoibed in the privacy and 
delight of its own being. 
From this time on we saw and heard 
the mocking-birds and other birds as 
well, everywhere; all seemed very tame 
and friendly. The merry merry spring¬ 
time had given them new life and confi¬ 
dence. It was very interesting after 
what we would at home call an April 
shower, to find that one day in March, 
that the birds everywhere about River¬ 
side were so active and full of song; 
everywhere, here on a chimney top, 
there on the peak of a gable sat a mock¬ 
ing-bird pouring forth its soul in song. 
Next to the mocking-bird the meadow 
lark is the most charming of the birds 
on the Pacific Coast. I have not yet 
heard the bird song which Air. John 
Aluie considers the most beautiful of all, 
that of the water ousel. The meadow 
laik thrives here, indeed, and so great 
are the demands which the growers of 
grain think this bird makes upon their 
crops that the legislature of California 
last winter tried as had been done at 
their previous session to pass a law aim¬ 
ing at its destruction. How shortsight¬ 
ed is man. The meadow lark is gayer 
plumagedc here and the song is longer 
and more musical ban in the Middle 
West. It has in it the “tinkle-tinkle- 
tinkle” of Poe’s bells. In Illinois the 
meadow lark sits on the fence or on the 
top of a mullein stalk, or like support, to 
sing but here on the Coast he perches 
high up on the very top of a tree, and 
here in the state of Oregon it seems to 
delight him most to sing from the very 
tip of a Dougl as fir, denuded of some 
of its top foliage. 
Among the trees of California that 
which has attracted me most is the pep- 
per-tree, with its graceful, drooping 
branches its feathery sprays of greenish- 
white blossoms, its rosy-red berries, in 
all stages of ripening from the most deli¬ 
cate to the richest shade of pink, and 
the habit of individual trees blooming at 
different times in the season. I was 
told that the birds would eat the berries 
of the pepper-tree. As I never have 
