decked out in black and gold, Canello rested his nose in the cleft of the tree, quite unmindful of the busy warblers that flitted about the branches, darting up for insects or chasing down by his nose after falling millers.

One morning the ranchman's little girl rode over to school behind me on Canello, pillion fashion. As we pushed through the brush and into the opening by the schoolhouse, scattered over the grass sat a flock of handsome black-headed grosbeaks, the western representative of the eastern rose-breast, looking, in the sun, almost as red as robins. They had probably come from the south the night before. As we watched, they dispersed and sang sweetly in the oaks and brush.

Black-headed Grosbeak. (One half natural size.)

Rose-breasted Grosbeak. (One half natural size.)

In the giant twin oak under whose shadow the the little schoolhouse stood was an owl's nest. When I stopped under it, nothing was to be seen but the tips of the ears of the brooding bird. But when I tried to hoot after the manner of owls, the angry old crone rose up on her feet above the nest till I could see her round yellow eyes and the full length of her long ears. She snapped her bill fiercely, bristled up, puffing out her feathers and shaking them at us threateningly. Poor old bird! I was amused at her performances, but one of her little birds lay dead at the foot of the tree, and I trembled for the others, for the school-children were near neighbors. Surely the old bird needed all her devices to protect her young. One day I saw on one side of the nest, below the big ears of the mother, the round head of a nestling.

It was pleasant to leave the road to ride out under the oaks along the way. There was always the delightful feeling that one might see a new bird or find some little friend just gone to housekeeping. One morning I discovered a bit of a wren under an oak with building material in her bill. She flew down to a box that lay under the tree and I dismounted to investigate. A tin can lay on its side in the box, and a few twigs and yellowish brown oak leaves were scattered about in a casual way, but the rusted lid of the can was half turned back, and well out of sight in the inside was a pretty round nest with one egg in it. I was delighted,—such an appropriate place for a wren's nest,—and sat down for her to come back. She was startled to find me there, and stopped on the edge of the board when just ready to jump down. She would have made a pretty picture as she stood hesitating, with her tail over her back, for the sun lit up her gray breast till it almost glistened and warmed her pretty brown head as she looked wistfully down at the box. After twisting and turning she went off to think the matter over, and, encouraged perhaps by my whistle, came back and hopped down into the little nest.

Two weeks later I was much grieved to find that the nest had been broken up. A horse had been staked under the tree, but he could not have done the mischief; for while the eggs were there, the nest itself was all jumbled up in the mouth of the can. I could not get it out of my mind for days. You become so much interested in the families you are watching that you feel as if their troubles were yours, and are haunted by the fear that they will think you have something to do with their accidents. They had taken me on probation at first, and at last had come to trust me—and then to imagine that I could deceive them and do the harm myself!

When Canello and I left the brushy side of the canyon and started across the valley, the pretty little horned larks, whose reddish backs matched the color of the road, would run on ahead of us, or let the horses come within a few feet of them, squatting down ready to start, but not taking wing till it seemed as if they would get stepped on. Sometimes one sat on a stone by the roadside, so busy singing its thin chattering song that it only flitted on to the next stone as we came up; for it never seemed to occur to the trustful birds that passers-by might harm them.

One of our most interesting birds nested in holes in the open uncultivated fields down the valley,—the burrowing owl, known popularly, though falsely, as the bird who shares its nest with prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. Though they do not share their quarters with their neighbors, they have large families of their own. We once passed a burrow around which nine owls were sitting. The children of the ranchman called the birds the 'how-do-you-do owls,' from the way they bow their heads as people pass. The owls believe in facing the enemy, and the Mexicans say they will twist their heads off if you go round them times enough.

One of our neighbors milked his cows out in a field where the burrowing owls had a nest, and he told me that his collie had nightly battles with the birds. I rode down one evening to see the droll performance, and getting there ahead of the milkers found the bare knoll of the pasture peopled with ground squirrels and owls. The squirrels sat with heads sticking out of their holes, or else stood up outside on their hind legs, with the sun on their light breasts, looking, as Mr. Roosevelt says, like 'picket pins.' The little old yellowish owls who matched the color of the pasture sat on the fence posts, while the darker colored young ones sat close by their holes, matching the color of the earth they lived in. As I watched, one of the old birds flew down to feed its young. A comical little fellow ran up to meet his parent and then scudded back to the nest hole, keeping low to the ground as if afraid of being seen, or of disobeying his mother's commands. When the ranchman came with his cows the small owls ducked down into their burrows out of sight.

Romulus, the collie, went up to the burrows and the old owls came swooping over his back screaming shrilly—the milkers told me that they often struck him so violently they nipped more than his hair! When the owls flew at him, Romulus would jump up into the air at them, and when they had settled back on the fence posts he would run up and start them off again. The performance had been repeated every night through the nesting season, and was getting to be rather an old story now, at least to Romulus. The ranchman had to urge him on for my benefit, and the owls acted as if they rather enjoyed the sport, though with them there was always the possibility that a reckless nestling might pop up its head from the ground at the wrong moment and come to grief. It would be interesting to know if the owls were really disturbed enough to move their nest another year.

When Canello and I faced home on our daily circuit of the valley, we often found the vineyard well peopled. In April, when it was being cultivated, there was a busy scene. All the blackbirds of the neighborhood—both Brewer's and redwings—assembled to pick up grubs from the soft earth. A squad of them followed close at the plowman's heels, others flew up before his horse, while those that lagged behind in their hunt were constantly flying ahead to catch up, and those that had eaten all