THE WATER-OUZEL XIV THE WILD SHEEP XV IN THE SIERRA FOOT-HILLS XVI

SUGAR PINE TRYING THE BOW A WIND-STORM IN THE CALIFORNIA FORESTS WATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDING ONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING-GROUNDS OF THE OUZEL OUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENT THE OUZEL AT HOME YOSEMITE BIRDS, SNOW-BOUND

SUGAR PINE TRYING THE BOW A WIND-STORM IN THE CALIFORNIA FORESTS WATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDING ONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING-GROUNDS OF THE OUZEL OUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENT THE OUZEL AT HOME YOSEMITE BIRDS, SNOW-BOUND

SUGAR PINE TRYING THE BOW A WIND-STORM IN THE CALIFORNIA FORESTS WATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDING ONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING-GROUNDS OF THE OUZEL OUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENT THE OUZEL AT HOME YOSEMITE BIRDS, SNOW-BOUND

SUGAR PINE TRYING THE BOW A WIND-STORM IN THE CALIFORNIA FORESTS WATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDING ONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING-GROUNDS OF THE OUZEL OUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENT THE OUZEL AT HOME YOSEMITE BIRDS, SNOW-BOUND

The roaring river fills all the arching way with impressively loud reverberating music, which is sweetened at times by the ouzel, a bird that is not afraid to go wherever a stream may go, and to sing wherever a stream sings.

Happily the ouzel and the old familiar robin are here to sing us welcome, and azure daisies beam with trustfulness and sympathy, enabling us to feel something of Nature's love even here, beneath the gaze of her coldest rocks.

After indulging here in a dozing, shimmering lake-rest, the happy stream sets forth again, warbling and trilling like an ouzel, ever delightfully confiding, no matter how dark the way; leaping, gliding, hither, thither, clear or foaming: manifesting the beauty of its wildness in every sound and gesture.

Insects now enrich the air, frogs pipe cheerily in the shallows, soon followed by the ouzel, which is the first bird to visit a glacier lake, as the sedge is the first of plants.

I have never yet met ducks in any of the lakes of this kind, but the ouzel is never wanting where the feeding-streams are perennial.

CHAPTER XIII THE WATER-OUZEL The waterfalls of the Sierra are frequented by only one bird,the Ouzel or Water Thrush (Cinclus Mexicanus, SW.).

The voices of most song-birds, however joyous, suffer a long winter eclipse; but the Ouzel sings on through all the seasons and every kind of storm.

he Yosemite birds are easily found during the winter because all of them excepting the Ouzel are restricted to the sunny north side of the valley, the south side being constantly eclipsed by the great frosty shadow of the wall.

The Ouzel is usually found singly; rarely in pairs, excepting during the breeding season, and very rarely in threes or fours.

The Ouzel seldom swims more than a few yards on the surface, for, not being web-footed, he makes rather slow progress, but by means of his strong, crisp wings he swims, or rather flies, with celerity under the surface, often to considerable distances.

[Illustration: OUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENT.]

The Ouzel alone of all birds dares to enter a white torrent.

Next came a sandpiper and gazed at me with much the same guileless expression of eye as the Ouzel.

But fortunately the Ouzel has no enemy so eager to eat his little body as to follow him into the mountain solitudes.

"The Water-Ouzel!" cried Gloria.

She would walk up the creek back of the house, sit by the hour near the pool where the water came slithering down over a green and grey boulder, watching for the water-ouzel, entertained in an absent sort of way by his bobbings and flirtings and snatches of song.

Looks like a bit of the rock itself, with moss all about it," and Gloria understood that it was her water-ouzel he was talking about.

SONGS FROM 'THE WATER-BABIES' THE TIDE RIVER Clear and cool, clear and cool, By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool; Cool and clear, cool and clear, By shining shingle, and foaming wear; Under the crag where the ouzel sings, And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, Undefiled, for the undefiled; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.

He will see ravens and hawks about the crags, and about the river half covered in summer with floating pond-weed, watercress, and the broad leaves of the yellow lily, he will notice many a water-ouzel bobbing with white breast, water-hens gliding from bank to bank, merry bands of divers, and the brilliant blue gleam of the passing kingfisher, which here is allowed to fish in peace, like the otter.

The throstle, the red-wing, and the fieldfare, which migrated in March, now return; and the ring-ouzel arrives from the Welsh and Scottish Alps to winter in more sheltered situations.