n riding out from the tree on my way home, I saw that he was mowing
just where the snake had been, and warned him to be careful lest the
horses get bitten. At the word rattlesnake his blue eyes dilated, and he
assured me that he would be on his guard. Seeing my glasses and
note-book, he asked if I were studying birds. When told that I was, from
his seat on the mowing-machine he took off his hat and bowed with the
air of a lord, saying in broken English, "I am pleased to meet you!"--a
pleasant tribute to the profession. A few days later, on meeting him, he
asked if I had found the rattlesnake--he had killed it under the
sycamore and hung it on a branch for me to see.

As the memory of my morning rides down to the sycamore brings to mind
the wonderful freshness of California's fog-cleared skies, so my sunset
rides home from the great tree recall the peacefulness of the quiet
valley at twilight. One sunset stands out with peculiar distinctness. As
Mountain Billy turned from the sycamore marsh its leaning blades gleamed
in the evening light, and the sun warmed the sides of the line of buff
Guernseys wading in procession through the high swamp grass to their
out-door milking stand. Beyond, a load of hay was crossing the meadows
with sun on the reins and the pitchforks the men carried over their
shoulders; and beyond, at the head of the valley, the western canyons
were filled with golden haze, while the last shafts of yellow light
loitered over the apricot orchards below, where the tranquil birds were
singing their evening songs. Slowly the long shadows of the mountain
crept over orchard and vineyard until, finally, the sun rounded the last
peak and left our little valley in darkness.

X.

AMONG MY TENANTS.

THE first year I was in California the thought of the orchards that were
to be set out on my ranch appealed to me much less than what the place
already possessed. As an inheritance from the stream that came down in
spring through the Ughland canyon--past the homes of the little lover,
the gnatcatchers, the little prisoners, and the lazulis and blue
jays--there was a straggling line of old sycamores, full of birds'
nests; and a patch of weeds, wild mustard, and willows, which was a
capital shelter for wandering warblers; and a bright sunny spot always
ringing with songs.

So many houses were being put up without so much as a by-your-leave that
it was high time for an ornithological landlady to bestir herself a