Verdin

One day while passing a little gully west of Tucson, Arizona, I saw a bunch of grass and roots caught on the bare catclaw limb. It looked like a piece of drift left by high water. Out of curiosity I went closer and found a small round hole in the side. In a few minutes a tiny bird with a yellow head appeared with a morsel of food in its bill, evidently the female. She hopped into the house, reappeared and was off without paying the slightest attention to me. In a few minutes the male came headlong with a mouthful of green measuring worms. He brot up with a surprised jerk and fidgeted as if he didn't know just what to do.

"Who are you and what do you want?"

My answer wasn't satisfactory so he played a favorite old bird trick — he swallowed the bug! Then hunted thru the brush to show he merely skirmished to satisfy his own appetite and if I thot that was a nest and there were children in it I was very much mistaken. Returning a week later I found the side door woven shut. The birds thot I had been too curious so they had built a roof and sloping porch, so I had to kneel to find the new entrance at the bottom. —Finley.

Tho the Verdin lives in hot mesquite valleys, the heat does not affect its lively spirits or mute the power of its song which seems as tho a much larger bird must give voice to such high notes. Bailey remarks that it seldom wanders far from a preferred locality. They sleep o' winter nights in warmly relined nests or even build new ones for the especial purpose. They show almost as much anxiety when their winter homes are approached as they do when eggs or young are within. Poke a finger into an occupied apartment at dawn or after sundown in January and you'll get a sharp peck to teach you better manners. Even in the breeding season the parent off watch spends the night in a nearby nest.