s ear, "Be quiet!"
with such a ring of command that an unbroken hush followed. Moreover,
when one child, probably a greedy one, teased for food, its parent ran
down the branch to drive it off; and in some way best known to
themselves the old birds hushed up the boisterous young ones and
spirited them out of my sight. But all these things were in line with
good family government and the best interests of the children, and were
more than atoned for by the soft gentle notes the old birds used when
they were leading around their cherished brood out of harm's way.

VII.

AROUND OUR RANCH-HOUSE.

CLOSE up under the hills, the old vine-covered ranch-house stood within
a circle of great spreading live oaks. The trees were full of noisy,
active blackbirds--Brewer's blackbirds, relatives of the rusty that we
know in New York. The ranchman told me that they always came up the
valley from the vineyard to begin gathering straws for their nests on
his brother's birthday, the twenty-fifth of March. After that time it
was well for passers below to beware. If an unwary cat, or even a hen or
turkey gobbler, chanced under the blackbirds' tree, half a dozen birds
would dive down at it, screaming and scolding till the intruders beat an
humble retreat. But the blackbirds were not always the aggressors. I
heard a great outcry from them one day, and ran out to find them
collecting at the tree in front of the house. A moment later a hawk flew
off with a young nestling, and was followed by an angry black mob.

One pair of the blackbirds nested in the oak by the side of the house,
over the hammock. Though making themselves so perfectly at home on the
premises, driving off the ranchman's cats and gobblers, and drinking
from his watering-trough, if they were taken at close quarters, with
young in their nests, the noisy birds were astonishingly timid. One
could hardly understand it in them.

One afternoon I sat down under the tree to watch them. Mountain Billy
rested his bridle on my knee, and the ranchman's dog came out to join
us; but the mother blackbird, though she came with food in her bill and
started to walk down the branch over our heads, stopped short of the
nest when her eye fell on us. She shook her tail and called _chack_, and
her mate, who sat near, opened wide his bill and whistled _chee_. The
small birds were hungry and grew impatient, seeing no cause for delay,
so raised their three fuzzy heads above the edge of the nest