teen
feet high, and after strutting up and down the rock with his tail and
wings hanging, stop to call, putting his bill down on the rock and going
through contortions as if pumping out the sound. The lad thought his
calls were answered from the brush below.

In April the ranchman reported that he had seen dusky poor-wills,
relatives of our whip-poor-wills, out flycatching on the road beyond the
ranch-house after dark. He had seen as many as eight or nine at once,
and they had let him come within three feet of them. Accordingly, one
night right after tea I started out to see them. The poor-wills choose
the most beautiful part of the twenty-four hours for their activity.
When I went out, the sky above the dark wall of the valley was a quiet
greenish yellow, and the rosy light was fading in the north at the head
of the canyon. White masses of fog pushed in from the ocean. Then the
constellations dawned and brightened till the evening star shone out in
her full radiant beauty. Locusts and crickets droned; bats zigzagged
overhead; and suddenly from the dusty road some black objects started
up, fluttered low over the barley, and dropped back on the road again.
At the same time came the call of the poor-will, which, close at hand,
is a soft burring _poor-will, poor-wil'-low_. Two or three hours later
I went out again. The full moon had risen, and shone down, transforming
the landscape. The road was a narrow line between silvered fields of
headed grain, and the granite bowlders gleamed white on the hills
inclosing the sleeping valley. For a few moments the shrill barking of
coyote wolves disturbed the stillness; then again the night became
silent; peace rested upon the valley, and from far up the canyon came
the faint, sad cry, _poor-wil'-low, poor-wil'-low_.

VIII.

POCKET MAKERS.

THE bush-tits are cousins of the eastern chickadees, which is reason
enough for liking them, although the California fruit growers have a
more substantial reason in the way the 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
tails attached, for they are plump fluffy tots, no bigger than your
thumb, without their tails. One of them, when preoccupied, once came
within three feet of where I stood. When he discovered me a comical look
of surprise came into his yellow eyes and he went tilting off, for his
long tail gav