A-Birding on a Bronco

he birds eat the scale that injures the olive-trees. The bush-tits might be the little sisters of the chickadee family, they are so small. They look like gray balls with long

e went tilting off, for his long tail gave him a pitching flight as if he were a

the Bu

e it when sitting in the crotch of the tree. While watching it I looked beyond over the chaparral wall away to a dark purple peak standing against a sky flecked with sun-whitened clouds. The nest was like an oriole's, but nearly twi

me that the birds hung living firefly lamps on their walls! I suggested that a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to

down into the pocket under my stare seemed a terrible thing. When one of them came with a bit of moss for lining, it started for the front door, saw me, stopped, and turned to go to the back of the nest. Then it tried to get up courage to approach the

work together; surely there was plenty of room for many such as they. But it is not always a matter of cubic inches, and one morning when the second bird was about to pop in, apparently it was advised to w

ide as long as if they had been human housekeepers, hanging pictures, straightening chairs, and se

of was falling in; it was almost on top of the front door! The next day, to my dismay, the door had vanished. What was the trouble? Were the pretty pair young builders; was

first nest to pieces and build a second one out of it. One of them tweaked out its board with such a jerk it sent the pocket swinging like

ch had a cross twig to support the roof, so that the accident that had befallen them could not possibly occur again. They began work at the top, holdin

ere was a thick wadding of feathers inside. I counted three hundred, and there were a great many more! The amount of hard labor this stood for amazed me. No wonder the nest pulled down, with a whole feather-bed inside! Why had they put it in? I asked some childr

NEST IN

and they all flew about in distress, though not one of them dared touch the dreadful tail that hung out of the nest hole. As the snake was about three feet long, the pocket bulged as it moved around inside. There were four nestlings about a quarter grown, and the relentless cr

still see daylight through it. In working, the birds flew to the top of the open bag and hopped down inside. I could see the pocket shake and bu

just see the nest in the pendent branches, and watch the changing mosaics made by the sky through the moving leaves. When resting on the sand the thoug

three hundred more feathers, with oak blossoms and moss to match. They first put the frame of the front door below the supporting cross twig, and then, as if they thought it needed more sup

trouble as might be. When my bird came, her bright eyes were quick to espy the old nest. She looked around, bewildered, as if wondering whether she was really awake, and making sure that this strange looking affair were not her second nest, come to grief in her absence. Being rea

but five years later, when again in southern California, to my delight I

fast as well as his nerves. One of the family, which I took to be the father bird, had some goody in his bill, and one of the young, presumably, followed him for it, flying up on his twig. The old bird turned his back upon the little one and went on shaking the grub. Presently a second one flew down on the other side of him,-he was between two fires; they touched him on both sides. I watched with interest to see what he would