. A-birding on a bronco . thevalley and the joys of horsebacking. Sometimeswe would be overtaken by the night fog. Onemoment the mustard would be all aglow with sun-shine ; at the next, a sullen bank of gray fogwould have risen over the mountain, obscuring thesun which had warmed us and lighted the mus-tard ; and in a few moments it would be so coldand damp that I would urge Canello into a lopeto warm our blood as we hurried home. II. THE LITTLE LOVER. On my sec-ond visit to Cal-ifornia, I spentthe winter inthe Santa Claravalley, ridingamong the foot-hills of the San-ta Cruz Moun-tains, wheref
. A-birding on a bronco . thevalley and the joys of horsebacking. Sometimeswe would be overtaken by the night fog. Onemoment the mustard would be all aglow with sun-shine ; at the next, a sullen bank of gray fogwould have risen over the mountain, obscuring thesun which had warmed us and lighted the mus-tard ; and in a few moments it would be so coldand damp that I would urge Canello into a lopeto warm our blood as we hurried home. II. THE LITTLE LOVER. On my sec-ond visit to Cal-ifornia, I spentthe winter inthe Santa Claravalley, ridingamong the foot-hills of the San-ta Cruz Moun-tains, whereflocks of Oregonrobins were rest-ing from thelabors of thesummer and passing the time until they couldfly home again ; but when the first spring wildflowers bloomed on the hills I shipped my littleroan mustang by steamer from San Francisco toSan Diego, and harried south to meet him andspend the nesting season in the little valley ofthe Coast Mountains which, five years before, hadproved such an ideal place to study The Little Lover.(Western House Wren.) THE LITTLE LOVER. 21 I went down early in March, to be sure to be intime for the nesting season ; but spring was so latethat by the last of April hardly a nest had beenbuilt, and it seemed as if the birds were nevercoming back. The weather was gloomy and theprospect for the springs work looked discouraging,when one morning I rode over to the line of oaksand sycamores at the mouth of Ughland canyonI had not visited before. In this dry, treelessregion of southern California only a little wateris needed to cover the bare valley bottoms withverdure. The rushing streams that flow downthe canyons after the winter rains fill their mouthswith rich groves of brush, oaks and sycamores ;while lines of trees border the streams as far asthey extend down the valleys. Before the streamsgo far, the thirsty soil drinks them up, leavingonly dry beds of sand bordered by trees, until therains of the following winter. In April, the waterin th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1896
