s most birds breathe; in fact, song seemed a necessity to them.
There was a high pole in front of the shed, and one day I found my
ebullient little friend squatting on top to hold himself on while he
sang out at the top of his lungs! Another time I came face to face with
a pair when the songster was in the midst of his roundelay. He stopped
short, bobbed nervously from side to side, and then, rising to his feet
and putting his right foot forward with a pretty courageous gesture,
took up his song again. When the pair were building in the crate, I
stuck some white hen's feathers there, thinking they might like to use
them. Mr. Troglodytes came first, and seeing them, instead of turning
tail as I have known brave guardians of the nest to do, burst out
singing, as if it were a huge joke. Then he hopped down on the rim of
the box to scrutinize the plumes, after which he flew out. But he had to
stop to sing atilt of an elder stem before he could go on to tell his
spouse about them.

One day, when riding back to the ranch, I saw half a dozen turkey
buzzards soaring over the meadow--perhaps there was a dead jack-rabbit
in the field. It was astonishing to see how soon the birds would
discover small carrion from their great height. The ranchman never
thought of burying anything, they were such good scavengers. A few hours
after an animal was thrown out in the field the vultures would find it.
They would stand on the body and pull it to pieces in the most revolting
way. The ranchman told me he had seen them circle over a pair of
fighting snakes, waiting to devour the one that was injured. They were
grotesque birds. I often saw them walk with their wings held out at
their sides as if cooling themselves, and the unbird-like attitude
together with the horrid appearance of their red skinny heads made them
seem more like harpies than before.

They were most interesting at a distance. I once saw three of them
standing like black images on a granite bowlder, on top of a hill
overlooking the valley. After a moment they set out and went circling in
the sky. Although they flew in a group, it seemed as if the individual
birds respected one another's lines so as not to cover the same ground.
Sometimes when soaring they seemed to rest on the air and let themselves
be borne by the wind; for they wobbled from one side to the other like a
cork on rough water.

One of the most interesting birds of the valley is the road-runner or
chaparral cock