A - birding on a bronco (1896) (14568745699)

Identifier: birdingonbronco00bail (find matches)
Title: A - birding on a bronco
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Bailey, Florence Merriam, b. 1863
Subjects: Birds -- California San Diego County
Publisher: Boston New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Co. : Cambridge, MA : The Riverside Press
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library



Text Appearing Before Image:
acy of coloring. Mountain Billy and I both liked to wanderamong the blue gums. Billy liked it, perhaps,for associations sake, for we had ridden throughthe eucalyptus at his home in northern Cali-fornia. I too had pleasant memories of thenorthern gums, but my first interest was infinding out who lived in my little woods. Adog had once been seen driving a coyote wolfout of it, but that was merely in passing. Idid not expect to meet wolves there. It wassaid, however, to be a good place for tarantulas,so at first I stepped over the dead leaf carpetwith great caution; but never seeing any ofthe big spiders, grew brave and sat indifferentlyright on the ground before the nests, or leaningup against the trees. The ground was almostas hard as a rock, for the eucalyptus absorbedall the moisture, and that may have had some-thing to do with its freedom from snakes andscorpions, though it would not explain theabsence of caterpillars and spiders, which justthen were so common outside. Though in the
Text Appearing After Image:
MY BLUE GUM GROVE. 215 grove a great deal, I never ran into but onecobweb, and was conscious of the pleasant free-dom from falling caterpillars. Moreover, Inever saw a lizard in the blue gums, thoughdozens of them were to be seen about the oaksand in the brush. It was a surprise to find so many featheredfolks living in the eucalyptus, and I took apersonal interest in each one of the inhabitants.The first time we started to go up and downthe avenues we scared up a pair of turtle doves,beautiful, delicately tinted gentle creatures, fittenants of the lovely grove. They did not knowmy friendly interest in them, and flew to theground trailing and trying to decoy me awayin such a marked manner that when we passeda young dove a few yards farther on, it was easyto put two and two together. Yellow-birds called cheet-tee, ca-cheet-ta-tee^and the grove became musical with the sweetcalls of the young brood. There was one nestwith a roof of shaggy bark, and I wondered ifthe birds thought it would