If the traveler is interested in these woodland tenants, and would learn something of their haunts and life, he should visit one who knows them as Thoreau knew all the wild and untamed things of nature. A short distance from Fairfax the San Geronimo Valley, nestling among the hills, is a fitting location for this naturalist and bird-lover. Though a taxidermist of much skill, Mr. Charles Allen is more widely known among ornithologists by that little fairy creature which makes its appearance in the early spring, known as Allen's Hummingbird. Although similar in point of size, it is in its coloring that Allen's Hummer may be distinguished from other hummingbirds, for its green back, ruffus-tail, streaked with black, dark-wings and ruffus head, easily separate it from other varieties. [Illustration: R. H. Hotaling's Residence on "Sleepy Hollow Ranch."] To a reflective mind there is no time of the year more joyous than spring. All nature seems gay and full of promise. Hope is vibrant in the air, and enters into the nature of the receptive man through more senses than science has yet named or discovered--an unnamed sense which is neither sight, nor sound, nor touch, nor intuition, a vibrant unseen force which is current throughout the universe, connecting man, unknowingly, to every tree, shrub, and atom. Thus, in the spring one feels that: "There's a chorus in the valleys and an anthem on the hills There's an echo from the music which our inner being thrills Till we long to journey outward where no other foot has trod, And join in the song of worship at the shrine of Nature's God." Spring is synonymous with the return of the birds, and their blythe little songs are but another promise of hope and expectation. Following close upon the return of Allen's Hummingbird is the little piliolated warbler with his green back, pale, sulphur yellow breast, and tiny "pee wit" call. [Illustration: The Taxidermist of Marin.] When the climbing roses are becoming gay with blossoms, our old friends, the linnets, returning from their winter's sojourn in lower California, begin to build their nests. A walk in the woods in the early morning or evening will acquaint one with another spring bird, Vaux's Swift, invariably seen about the streams. [Illustration: A Quail's Nest.]