Most conspicuous, as we toiled upward toward our breezy pasture, was a bird whose chosen station was a fence--a wire fence at that. He was a tanager; not our brilliant beauty in scarlet and black, but one far more gorgeous and eccentric in costume, having, with the black wings and tail of our bird, a breast of shining yellow and a cap of crimson. His occupation on the sweet May mornings that he lingered with us, on his way up the mountains for the summer, was the familiar one of getting his living, and to that he gave his mind without reserve. Not once did he turn curious eyes upon us as we sauntered by or rested awhile to watch him. Eagerly his pretty head turned this way and that, but not for us; it was for the winged creatures of the air he looked, and when one that pleased his fancy fluttered by he dashed out and secured it, returning to a post or the fence just as absorbed and just as eager for the next one. Every time he alighted it was a few feet farther down the fence, and thus he worked his way out of our sight, without seeming aware of our existence. This was not stupidity on the part of the crimson-head, nor was it foolhardiness; it was simply trust in his guardian, for he had one,--one who watched every movement of ours with close attention, whose vigilance was never relaxed, and who appeared, when we saw her, to be above the need of food. A plain personage she was, clad in modest, dull yellow,--the female tanager. She was probably his mate; at any rate, she gradually followed him down the fence, keeping fifteen or twenty feet behind him, all the time with an eye on us, ready to give warning of the slightest aggressive movement on our part. It would be interesting to know how my lord behaves up in those sky-parlors where their summer homes are made. No doubt he is as tender and devoted as most of his race (all his race, I would say, if Mr. Torrey had not shaken our faith in the ruby-throat), and I have no doubt that the little red-heads in the nest will be well looked after and fed by their fly-catching papa. Far different from the cool unconcern of the crimson-headed tanager were the manners of another red-headed dweller on the mountain. The green-tailed towhee he is called in the books, though the red of his head is much more conspicuous than the green of his tail. In this bird the high-bred repose of his neighbor was replaced by the most fussy restlessness. When we surprised him on the lowest wire of the fence, he was terribly disconcerted, not to say thrown into a panic. He usually stood a moment, holding his long tail up in the air, flirted his wings, turned his body this way and that in great excitement, then hopped to the nearest bowlder, slipped down behind it, and ran off through the sage bushes like a mouse. More than this we were never able to see, and where he lived and how his spouse looked we do not know to this day.