ly almost within
reach, then frisking away with lively chipping, like sparrows, beating
time to their music with their tails, which at each chip describe half
circles from side to side. Not even the Douglas squirrel is surer-footed
or more fearless. I have seen them running about on sheer precipices of
the Yosemite walls seemingly holding on with as little effort as flies,
and as unconscious of danger, where, if the slightest slip were made,
they would have fallen two or three thousand feet. How fine it would be
could we mountaineers climb these tremendous cliffs with the same sure
grip! The venture I made the other day for a view of the Yosemite Fall,
and which tried my nerves so sorely, this little Tamias would have made
for an ear of grass.

The woodchuck (_Arctomys monax_) of the bleak mountain-tops is a very
different sort of mountaineer--the most bovine of rodents, a heavy
eater, fat, aldermanic in bulk and fairly bloated, in his high pastures,
like a cow in a clover field. One woodchuck would outweigh a hundred
chipmunks, and yet he is by no means a dull animal. In the midst of what
we regard as storm-beaten desolation he pipes and whistles right
cheerily, and enjoys long life in his skyland homes. His burrow is made
in disintegrated rocks or beneath large boulders. Coming out of his den
in the cold hoarfrost mornings, he takes a sun-bath on some favorite
flat-topped rock, then goes to breakfast in garden hollows, eats grass
and flowers until comfortably swollen, then goes a-visiting to fight and
play. How long a woodchuck lives in this bracing air I don't know, but
some of them are rusty and gray like lichen-covered boulders.

_August 1._ A grand cloudland and five-minute shower, refreshing the
blessed wilderness, already so fragrant and fresh, steeping the black
meadow mold and dead leaves like tea.

The waycup, or flicker, so familiar to every boy in the old Middle West
States, is one of the most common of the wood-peckers hereabouts, and
makes one feel at home. I can see no difference in plumage or habits
from the Eastern species, though the climate here is so different,--a
fine, brave, confiding, beautiful bird. The robin, too, is here, with
all his familiar notes and gestures, tripping daintily on open garden
spots and high meadows. Over all America he seems to be at home, moving
from the plains to the mountains and from north to south, back and
forth, up and down, with the march of the seasons and food s