y-catching papa.

Far different from the cool unconcern of the crimson-headed tanager were
the manners of another red-headed dweller on the mountain. The
green-tailed towhee he is called in the books, though the red of his
head is much more conspicuous than the green of his tail. In this bird
the high-bred repose of his neighbor was replaced by the most fussy
restlessness. When we surprised him on the lowest wire of the fence, he
was terribly disconcerted, not to say thrown into a panic. He usually
stood a moment, holding his long tail up in the air, flirted his wings,
turned his body this way and that in great excitement, then hopped to
the nearest bowlder, slipped down behind it, and ran off through the
sage bushes like a mouse. More than this we were never able to see, and
where he lived and how his spouse looked we do not know to this day.

Most interesting of the birds that we saw on our daily way to the
pasture were the gulls; great, beautiful, snowy creatures, who looked
strangely out of place so far away from the seashore. Stranger, too,
than their change of residence was their change of manners from the
wild, unapproachable sea-birds, soaring and diving, and apparently
spending their lives on wings such as the poet sings,--

"When I had wings, my brother,
Such wings were mine as thine;"

and of whose lives he further says,--

"What place man may, we claim it,
But thine,--whose thought may name it?
Free birds live higher than freemen,
And gladlier ye than we."

From this high place in our thoughts, from this realm of poetry and
mystery, to come down almost to the tameness of the barnyard fowl is a
marvelous transformation, and one is tempted to believe the solemn
announcement of the Salt Lake prophet, that the Lord sent them to his
chosen people.

The occasion of this alleged special favor to the Latter Day Saints was
the advent, about twenty years ago, of clouds of grasshoppers, before
which the crops of the Western States and Territories were destroyed as
by fire. It was then, in their hour of greatest need, when the food upon
which depended a whole people was threatened, that these beautiful
winged messengers appeared. In large flocks they came, from no one knows
where, and settled, like so many sparrows, all over the land, devouring
almost without ceasing the hosts of the foe. The crops were saved, and
all Deseret rejoiced. Was it any wonder that a people trained to regard
the head of their