Part 16

It seemed such hard work finding worms out in the hot sun that I wondered if birds' eyes ever ached from the intentness of their search, and if there were near-sighted birds. Perhaps the intervals of feeding depend on the worm supply rather than the dietary principles of the parents.

Gretchen's mother was bending over her wash-tubs out under the oaks, and I called her attention to the pretty birds brooding in her door-yard, telling her that they were good friends of hers, eating up the worms that destroyed her flowers and vegetables. "So?" she asked, but seemed ready to let the subject drop there, and hurried back to her work. A poor widow with a large family of children and a ranch to look after can find little time, even in beautiful California, to enjoy what Nature places in her door-yard.

Three weeks later Gretchen came riding down to tell me that there were eggs in the tree again. The bluebird bid fair to be as hardworked as the widow, at that rate, I thought, when I went up to look at them. The children showed me the nest of a goldfinch, near the ground, in one of the little orange-trees in front of the house. They also pointed out linnets' nests in the vines by the door, and the oldest child said eagerly, "When we came home from school there was a hummingbird in the window, and we caught it," adding, "I think it must have been a father hummingbird." "Why?" I asked, "was it pretty?" "Yes, it just shined," she exclaimed enthusiastically.

When the family were at home, their puppy would bark at us furiously, and follow us about suspiciously, but when he had been left on the ranch alone he was glad of our society. Then when I watched the bluebirds, he came and curled down by my side, becoming so friendly that he actually grew jealous of Billy, and turned to have me caress him each time that the little horse walked up to have the flies brushed off his nose, or having pulled up a bunch of grass by the roots, brought it for me to hold so that he could eat it without getting the dirt in his mouth.

Going home one day, Billy came upon a gopher snake. Now Canello had been brought up in a rattlesnake country, and was always on his guard, but Billy was 'raised' in the mountains, where snakes are scarce, and did not seem to know what they were. He had given me a good deal of anxiety by this indifference--he had stepped over a big one once without seeing any need for haste--and I had been expecting that he would get bitten. Here, then, was my chance to give him a scare. The gopher snake was harmless; perhaps, if I could get him so close to it that he would see it wriggle away from under his feet, he might be less indifferent to rattlers.

The gopher snake was three or four feet long, and lay as straight as a stick across our path. As I urged Billy up beside it, he actually stepped on the tip of its tail. The poor snake writhed a little, but gave no other sign of pain; its rôle was to remain a stick. And Billy certainly acted as if it were. I threw the reins on his neck, thinking that if he put his head down to graze he might make a discovery. Then a horrid thought came to me. The people said the rattlers sometimes lost their rattles. In a general way, rattlers and gopher snakes look alike; what if this were a rattlesnake, and at my bidding my little horse should be struck! But no. There was no mistaking the long tapering body of the gopher, and it lacked the wide flat head of the rattler. But I might have spared myself my fears. Billy would not even put his head down, and when I tried to force him upon the snake he quietly turned aside. To make the snake move, I threw a stick at it, but it was as obstinate as Billy himself. Then I slipped to the ground, and picking up a long pole gave it a gingerly little poke. Still motionless! I tried another plan, taking Billy away a few yards. Then at last the snake slowly pulled itself along. But the moment we came back it turned into a stick again, and Billy relapsed into indifference. It was no use. I could do nothing with either of them. I would see the snake go off, anyway, I thought, so withdrew and waited till it felt reassured, when it started. Its silken skin shone as it wormed silently through the grass and disappeared down a hole without a sound, and I reflected that it might also come up without a sound, very likely beside me as I sat on the dead leaves!

XVII.

WHICH WAS THE MOTHER BIRD?

THE second time I went to California the little whitewashed adobe opposite my ranch was still standing, but an acacia-tree had grown over the well where the black phbe had nested, and the shaft was so overrun with bushes and vines that it was hard to find a trace of it. Drawn by pleasant memories, I rode in one morning, sure of finding something interesting about the old place.

I had not waited long before the chip of a young bird came from the vines over the well. It proved a callow nestling, with no tail, and little to mark its parentage. Presently a brown long-tailed wren-tit came with food in its bill and peered down through the leaves at it; and then a California towhee came and sat around till satisfied as to whose child was crying. A moment later a lazuli bunting flew over with food in her bill, and I at once bethought me of the lazuli-like markings, the brownish wing-bars and the sharp cry of "quit," which none but a lazuli could give. That surely was my bird.

But if so, what did this interest on the part of the wren-tit mean? She hopped about the nestling with tail up and crest raised, chattering to it in low mysterious tones; and when I suspected her of giving her worm to it, suddenly turned her head and looked away with a suspiciously non-committal air. The lazuli, however, sat indifferently on a branch and plumed her feathers, though when she did fly down toward the young one, the wren-tit gave way. But even then the lazuli did not feed the small bird. When she had gone, the wren-tit came back. She spoke low to the nestling, and drew it down into the thick part of the tangle where I could not see them, though there was a hint of tiny quivering wings, and I was morally certain that the old bird was feeding it, especially when she flew up in sight with the smart air of having outwitted me.

I was getting more and more bewildered. What did it all mean? Were there two families of young down in the tangle? If not, why were two old birds feeding one little one, and to which mother did the child belong? The wisdom of Solomon was needed to solve the riddle.

The wren-tit simply devoted herself to the little bird, going and coming for it constantly; while the lazuli, ordinarily the most nervous noisy bird when her young are disturbed, sat around silently, or flew away without remark. I became so impressed by the wren-tit side of the case that I quite forgot the lazuli note and markings.

Just as I thought I had come to a decision in the case, a male lazuli flew in, lighting atilt of an acacia stalk opposite the wren-tit. But when he saw me he craned his neck and flew off in a hurry--no father, surely, scared away at the first glimpse of me! However, I was not clear in my mind, and sat down to puzzle the matter out.

At this juncture Madame Lazuli came with food; the young bird turned toward her for it, and behold! she took to her wings with all she had brought. I had hardly time to congratulate myself on this new piece of testimony, when back came the lazuli with her bill full!

In my perplexity I moved so near the little one that, without meaning to, I forced the old birds to show their true colors. The situation was too dangerous to admit of further subterfuge. Both Madame Lazuli and her handsome blue mate--whom I discovered at a safe distance up on a high branch out of reach--flew down and dashed about, twitching their tails from side to side as they cried "quit," in nervous tones; altogether acting so much like anxious parents that I had to relinquish my theory that the little bird belonged to the wren-tit. Like the mother whom Solomon judged, she forgot all else when real danger threatened the child. Having come to my decision from circumstantial evidence, I remembered with a start that I had known it all the time, from the wing-bars and the call note! Nevertheless, my riddle was only half solved, for how about the wren-tit?

A young bird called from the sycamore at the corner of the adobe, and when both old birds flew over to it, I thought I'd better follow. I got there just in time to see a little bird light in the elbow of a limb, totter as if going to fall, and save itself by snuggling up in the elbow, where it sat in the sun looking very cozy and comfortable--winning little tot. The mother lazuli started to come to it, but seeing me flew away to another branch, where, well screened, she stretched up on her toes to look at me over the top of a big sycamore leaf. Though the fledgling called, the mother left without going to it.

The wren-tit had stayed behind at the well; but while the lazuli was gone, who should come flying in but the foster mother! I was astonished. Moreover, the instant the youngster set eyes on her, it started up and flew to her--actually flew into her in its hurry. She admonished it gently, in a soft chattering voice, for she could not scold it.

When the lazuli came back with food, it was only to see her little bird flying off to the other side of the tree after the wren-tit! I thought she seemed bewildered, but she followed in their wake--we all followed. Here came a closer test. Both lazuli and wren-tit stood before the small bird. Which would it go to? The lazuli kept silent, but the wren-tit called softly and the little one raised its wings and flew toward her, leaving its mother behind.

I watched and waited, but the wren-tit did not give over her kind offices, and the last I saw of the birds, on riding away, the three were flying in procession across the brush, the lazuli following its mother and the wren-tit bringing up the rear.

I went home very much puzzled. Was the wren-tit a lonely mother bird who had lost her own little ones, or was she merely an old maid with a warm spot in her heart for other peoples' little folks?

XVIII.

A RARE BIRD.

WE may say that we care naught for the world and its ways, but most of us are more or less tricked by the high-sounding titles of the mighty. Even plain-thinking observers come under the same curse of Adam, and, like the snobs who turn scornfully from Mr. Jones to hang upon the words of Lord Higginbottom, will pass by a plain brown chippie to study with enthusiasm the ways of a phainopepla! Sometimes, however, in ornithology as in the world, a name does cover more than its letters, and we are duped into making some interesting discoveries as well as learning some of the important lessons in life. In the case of the phainopepla, no hopes that could be raised by his cognomen would equal the rare pleasure afforded by a study of his unusual ways.

On my first visit to Twin Oaks I caught but brief glimpses of this distinguished bird. Sometimes for a moment he lit on a bare limb and I had a chance to admire his high black crest and glossy blue-black coat, which with one more touch of color would become iridescent. He was so slenderly formed, and his shining coat was so smooth and trim, he made me think of a bird of glass perched on a tree. But while I gazed at him he would launch into the air and wing his way high over the valley to the hillsides beyond, leaving me to marvel at the white disks on his wings, hidden when perching, but in air making him suggest a black ship with white sails.

His appearance was so elegant and his ways so unusual that I went back East regretting I had not given more time to a bird who was so individual, and resolved that if I ever returned to California my first pleasure should be to study him. When the time finally came, an ornithologist friend who knew my plans wrote, exclaiming, "Do study the phainopeplas!" and added that she felt like making a journey to California to see that one bird.

From the middle of March till the middle of May I watched and waited for the phainopeplas. There had been only a few of the birds before, and I began to fear they had left the valley. When despairing of them, suddenly one day I saw a black speck cross over to the hills. I wanted to drop my work and follow, but went on with my rounds, and one bright morning on my way home after a discouraging hunt for nests, a pair of phainopeplas flew up right before my eyes almost within sight of the house. I dropped down behind a bush, and in a moment more the birds flew to a little oak by the road--a tree I had been sitting under that very morning! The female seated herself on top of the oak, watching me with raised crest, while her mate disappeared in a dark mat of leaves, probably mistletoe, where he stayed so long that the possibility of a nest waxed to a probability, and I made a rapid but ecstatic ascent to the observer's seventh heaven. A phainopepla's nest right on my own doorsill! I could hardly restrain my impatience, and was tempted to shoo the birds away so I could go to the nest; when suddenly they opened their wings and, crossing the valley, disappeared up a side canyon! Pulling myself together and reflecting that I might have known better than to imagine there would be a nest so near home, I took up my camp-stool and trudged back to the house.

After that came a number of tantalizing hints. When watching the third gnatcatcher's nest I had seen a pair of phainopeplas flying suggestively back and forth from the brush to the various oaks, and thought the handsome lover fed his mate as his relative the gentle high-bred waxwing does. Surely the wooing of these beautiful birds should be carried on with no less fine feeling, courtesy, and tenderness; and so it seems to be. The black knight flew low over my head slowly, as if inspecting me, and then came again with his lady, as if having said, "Dear one, I would consult you upon this impending danger."