mbled
farther down the valley; and I once had a rare pleasure in seeing a
company of them perched high on the blooming mustard.

The son of the ranchman told me an interesting thing about the ordinary
blackbirds. He said he had seen a flock of perhaps five hundred fly down
toward a band of grazing sheep, and all but a few of the birds light on
the backs of sheep. The animals did not seem to mind, and the birds flew
from one to another and roosted and rode to their heart's content. They
would drop to the ground, but if anything startled them, fly back to
their sheep again. Sometimes he had seen a few of the blackbirds picking
out wool for their nests by bracing themselves on the backs of the
sheep, and pulling where the wool was loose. He had also seen the birds
ride hogs, cattle, and horses; but he said the horses usually switched
them off with their tails.

On our way home we passed a small pond made by the spring rains. Since
it was the only body of water for miles around, it was especially
refreshing to us, and was the rendezvous of all our feathered
neighbors--how they must have wished it would last all through the hot
summer months! As I rode through the long grass on the edge of the pond,
dark water snakes often wriggled away from under Canello's feet; but he
evidently knew they were harmless, for he paid no attention to them,
though he was mortally afraid of rattlers. I did not like the feeling
that any snake, however innocent, was under my feet, so would pull him
up out of the grass onto a flat rock overlooking the pond.

In the fresh part of the morning, before the fog had entirely melted
away, the round pool at our feet mirrored the blue sky and the small
white clouds. If a breath of wind ruffled the water into lines, in a
moment more it was sparkling. Along the margin of the water was a border
of wild flowers, pink, purple, and gold; on one side stood a group of
sycamores, their twisted trunks white in the morning sun and their
branches full of singing birds; while away to the south a line of dark
blue undulating hills was crowned by the peak from which we had looked
off on the mountains of Mexico. The air was ringing with songs, the
sycamores were noisy with the chatter of blackbirds and bee-birds, and
the bushes were full of sparrows.

There was an elder on the edge of the pond, and the bathers flew to this
and then flitted down to the water; and when they flew up afterwards,
lighted there to whip the w