Less fear of me than of another bird. Reasons for think- ing that wild birds have inborn fear of man: as man. One reason why R is hard to find. A test of R's "sporting in- stinct". (Memory.) A sop to my ego. Movie. doing this, working him around the spray toward me. Some of the worms he got, some not. Occasionally he flinched slightly at my movements or retreated, but advanced again. He approached me within 6 feet in the open in the hot sun, on the bare road, and picked up worms. He suddenly fled in panic when a spotted towhee, eating suet 15 feet away, flew. He was not afraid of me any more than he was of that bird. Apparently less so. Observation ended here. Duration about 15 minutes. From this experience, taken in connection with many others with thrashers here and in the wild, with road-runners here and one in the wild, with wrens and the two kinds of towhees here, a Virginia rail here, black-headed grosbeaks, orioles (Bullock), green-backed goldfinches and other birds elsewhere, I am satis- fied that the wild bird has no in-born, inherited, innate, intrin- sic, primordial, ancestral, inherited, instinctive-whatsoever you wish to call it-fear of man as man. Man is only another large animal, rather dull and stupid and making clumsy movements. There is little need to fear him. Certainly much less than there is to fear from birds not of ones own kind, with their swift, precise and intelligent, hostile movements! 2:45 P.M. Rhody and Lizard and Rhody and Snake. At 1:45 I attempted to look up Rhody. Again he "found me". In looking for this animal, one must look at his own back trail, because R has a habit of not moving (hence being invisible) as one passes by, then coming out behind one in a bored sort of way. He wanted not mouse, but Julio happening to have just caught a lizard, I wished to test the view that Rhody, hungry or not, will respond to the presence of that reptile, from sporting instinct alone, if from no other motive. This would be in line with past experience. The lizard was placed on the ground by the lath-house on top of which R was resting now in the shade. He saw it at once, but was very deliberate in coming down to it, but he came. He wanted it to run and furnish sport, waiting patiently, then walk- ing around it. When it bolted he was after it, but it got into a helianthemum out of sight. R watched the plant closely for several minutes. Getting impatient, he reached in and lifted the lizard out accurately. He knew exactly where it was all the time. Then followed a series of releases and recaptures, interspersed with strutting, and wing-flirtings by Rhody over the bird as if in benediction. These lizards, as has been noted before, will play 'possum even when in a captor's bill and await an opportu- ity to dart away. Rhody got too confident and the creature got away from him into a pile of peat bales, etc. Then followed a careful detailed search by Rhody, without success, in which we helped. After several minutes of this Rhody went back to the helianthemum, the first point of refuge of the lizard (memory) now 20 feet away. He searched this, no longer patient, pulling up its branches with his bill and looking underneath. No re- sults. Meanwhile I had seen the lizard's tail in a crack in the gravel-bin. (It always satisfies my ego, temporarily at least, to demonstrate the superiority of man, with his inferior senses and superior mind, over the wild creature with attributes direct- ly the reverse. At this point it occurred to me that I was missing something photographically, so belatedly got the movie camera. Took 50ft. of R and lizard, but R's enthusiasm had waned, though he showed some of his earlier spirit. The lizard, as if realizing the limitations of a man with a heavy camera, kept taking refuge behind me.