“It makes me sort of shuddery,” said Mary Temple. “That’s no way for a bird to act, even if he is a country jake. It isn’t right that he shouldn’t be afraid of us. It’s uncanny--and this is getting to be mighty uncanny country. Things get queerer and queerer every day, and I feel queerer and queerer every hour. I can just barely breathe in this light air. My head is on a spree and my feet are dead drunk.” “It only goes to show,” argued Charmian, “how the wild creatures would consider us if only we were as decent as they are. There is no reason on earth why any wild thing should fear a human being. I have read arguments built up about the hypothesis that wild animals fear man instinctively, that they naturally recognize him as their master. More of man’s monumental egotism! When an animal distrusts man, that distrust is bred in him by reason of his ancestors having been obliged to escape from human ruthlessness. Or the individual itself has suffered at the hands of man.” And not many days had passed before she proved, in part at least, that her contentions were correct; for the farther they forged into that untamed wilderness the more trusting the wild life became. Small, queer birds which none of them could name, most of them with long bills and heads that seemed almost as large as their bodies, followed them on the trail, perched above them in the chaparral and cocked their heads one side to stare down in puzzlement, and often flew to their very knees or alighted on their shoulders. Upward and ever upward, over the sprawling toes and then over the generous knees of Dewlap Mountain. The only bird seen now was an occasional rosy finch; the mammals encountered consisted of the Alpine chipmunk, the grey bushy-tailed woodrat, and that quaint and ingenious native of the bleak altitudes, the Yosemite cony. This little animal, called variously rock rabbit, little chief hare, pika, or cony, is less than seven inches over all, and, much more so than the rabbit, has a tail which “mustn’t be talked about.” It has short rounded ears, dense hair, and, though closely resembling the rabbit, it runs an all fours, with a hobbling gait. It never sits up on its haunches, as does the rabbit, nor does it leave the Alpine Zone for a warmer clime when blizzards rage. Its home is in rock slides, where it cuts, dries, and stores up hay for use when the land is covered deep with snow. Often the travellers saw one perched on a lofty granite rock and heard its strange bleating cry of alarm.