per cent of it by weight is sand. I washed the clay out of a
large lump of it and found the sand a curious heterogeneous mixture of
small and large, light and dark grains of all possible forms. The soil
does not bake as do our clay soils, and keeps moist when ours would
almost defy the plough. Under cultivation it works up into a good
tillable condition. Its capacity to retain moisture is remarkable, as if
it were made for a scant rainfall. As a crop-producing soil, it has
virtues which I am at a loss to account for. Root vegetables grown here
have a sweetness, and above all, a tenderness, of which we know nothing
in the East. Much sunshine in our climate makes root vegetables fibrous
and tough.

I more than half believe that the wonderful sweetness of the bird songs
here, such as that of the meadowlark, is more or less a matter of
climate; the quality of the sunshine seems to have affected their vocal
cords. The clear, piercing, shaft-like note of our meadowlark contrasts
with that of the Pacific variety as our hard, brilliant blue skies
contrast with the softer and tenderer skies of this sun-blessed land.

II. LAWN BIRDS

To have a smooth grassy lawn about your house on the Pacific coast is to
have spread out before you at nearly all hours of the day a pretty
spectacle of wild-bird life. Warblers, sparrows, thrushes, titlarks, and
plovers flutter across it as thick as autumn leaves--not so highly
colored, yet showing a pleasing variety of tints, while the black
phoebe flits about your porch and arbor vines.

Audubon's warbler is the most numerous, probably ten to one of any other
variety of birds. Then the white-crowned sparrows, Gambel's sparrow, the
tree sparrow, and one or two other sparrows of which I am not sure are
next in number.

Two species of birds from the Far North are usually represented by a
solitary specimen of each, namely, the Alaska hermit thrush and the
American pipit, or titlark. The thrush is silent, but has its usual
trim, alert look. The pipit is the only walker in the group. It walks
about like our oven-bird with the same pretty movement of the head and a
teetering motion of the hind part of the body.

While in Alaska, in July, 1899, with the Harriman Expedition, I found
the nest of the pipit far up on the side of a steep mountain. It was
tucked in under a mossy tuft and commanded a view of sea and mountain
such as Alaska alone can afford.

But the most conspicuous and interesting of