thin range of the little performer, who was blowing his
Huon's horn from the pointed top of a large stone on the mesa's side. My
field-glass was soon fixed upon him, revealing a little bird with a long
beak, decurved at the end, a grayish-brown coat quite thickly barred and
mottled on the wings and tail, and a vest of warm white finely sprinkled
with a dusky gray. A queer, shy, timid little thing he was. Afterwards I
met him often, but never succeeded in gaining his confidence or winning
a single concession from him. He was the rock wren (_Salpinctes
obsoletus_)--a species that is unknown east of the Great Plains, one
well deserving a place in literature.

I was especially impressed with his peculiar style of minstrelsy, so
different from anything I had ever heard in the bird realm. While the
song was characterized by much variety, it usually opened with two or
three loud, clear syllables, somewhat prolonged, sounding, as has been
said, like a challenge, followed by a peculiar bubbling trill that
seemed fairly to roll from the piper's tongue. Early one morning a few
days later I heard a brilliant vocalist descanting from the top of a
pump in a wide field among the foothills. How wildly his tones rang out
on the crisp morning air! I seemed to be suddenly transported to another
part of the world, his style of music was so new, so foreign to my ear.
My pencilled notes say of this particular minstrel: "Very musical--great
variety of notes--clear, loud, ringing--several runs slightly like
Carolina's--others suggest Bewick's--but most of them _sui generis_."

Let us return to the first rock wren I saw. He was exceedingly shy,
scurrying off to a more distant perch--another stone--as I approached.
Sometimes he would run down among the bushes and rocks like a mouse,
then glide to the top of another stone, and fling his pert little aria
at the intruder. It was interesting to note that he most frequently
selected for a singing perch the top of a high, pointed rock where he
could command a view of his surroundings and pipe a note of warning to
his mate at the approach of a supposed enemy. Almost every conspicuous
rock on the acclivity bore evidence of having been used as a lookout by
the little sentinel.

This wren is well named, for his home is among the rocks, in the
crannies and niches of which his mate hides her nest so effectually that
you must look long for it, and even after the most painstaking search
you may not be able