r their nests until more than a
year after I had made the acquaintance of the birds themselves, although
I found one the very day on which I began the search. In making my way
from Yosemite to the glaciers at the heads of the Merced and Tuolumne
rivers, I camped in a particularly wild and romantic portion of the
Nevada canon where in previous excursions I had never failed to enjoy
the company of my favorites, who were attracted here, no doubt, by the
safe nesting-places in the shelving rocks, and by the abundance of food
and falling water. The river, for miles above and below, consists of a
succession of small falls from ten to sixty feet in height, connected by
flat, plume-like cascades that go flashing from fall to fall, free and
almost channelless, over waving folds of glacier-polished granite.

On the south side of one of the falls, that portion of the precipice
which is bathed by the spray presents a series of little shelves and
tablets caused by the development of planes of cleavage in the granite,
and by the consequent fall of masses through the action of the water.
"Now here," said I, "of all places, is the most charming spot for an
Ouzel's nest." Then carefully scanning the fretted face of the precipice
through the spray, I at length noticed a yellowish moss-cushion, growing
on the edge of a level tablet within five or six feet of the outer folds
of the fall. But apart from the fact of its being situated where one
acquainted with the lives of ouzels would fancy an Ouzel's nest ought to
be, there was nothing in its appearance visible at first sight, to
distinguish it from other bosses of rock-moss similarly situated with
reference to perennial spray; and it was not until I had scrutinized it
again and again, and had removed my shoes and stockings and crept along
the face of the rock within eight or ten feet of it, that I could decide
certainly whether it was a nest or a natural growth.

In these moss huts three or four eggs are laid, white like foam-bubbles;
and well may the little birds hatched from them sing water songs, for
they hear them all their lives, and even before they are born.

I have often observed the young just out of the nest making their odd
gestures, and seeming in every way as much at home as their experienced
parents, like young bees on their first excursions to the flower fields.
No amount of familiarity with people and their ways seems to change them
in the least. To all appearance their b