1602 About 9:30 I went to the sage-patch and sat down. Neo was home and came out to take worms from hand, keeping up a low con- versation with his invisible mate. She did not appear at all during the 10 minutes I sat there. I now went west to look up Rhody, passing a female silver pheasant in the orchard (Dr. R's?). Rhody was in the Clearing-- not a usual place for him, unless invited there. He wanted no food and I left him. 15 minutes later he was in the orchard, as I discov- ered by going to see what two Bewick wrens were so noisy about. He was given a piece of Hamburger, but ate only small scraps from it. A unique experience with Rhody, Neo et al. About 10:20 I heard Rhody start his coo-song in the orch- ard, finding him sitting in a bush on the bank between the apricot and the fig. I stood about 7 feet from him, watched and listened closely. He was not at all embarrassed by my presence and sang 20 or 30 times during the approximately three- quarters of an hour I remained there. I have described this song several times; but there are some phases of it which I may not have touched upon before. (I'm not go- in to look up back notes!). He sings with his bill closed. Some- times there is a slight nasal overtone on one or more of the coos; but usually the sounds are sweet and plaintive. Sometimes there is a little grace-note at the beginning. On the present occasion his utterance varied between 5 and 7 coos. As noted before, once or twice he "forgot" the usual detached, lower, last note. Neo comes. I had been standing there only two or three minutes before Neo came out of the bushes to join the party, talking to his still invisible mate. He came to me for worms, not bothered by Rhody. That bird, after one glance down at the thrasher, ignored him thereafter, continuing his song. N2 comes out. Neo's mate now chose to show herself. I tried to get worms to her, but the greedy Neo is too agile and has too long a radius of action, so N2 generally lost and finally went off about 10 yards to dig. Bushtits and plain titmouses visit R. A pair of plain titmice now landed in Rhody's bush about four feet behind him and scolded. He turned his head to look at them, but did nothing about it, continuing his song. Other birds nearby. Other birds nearby were: Quail, golden-crowned, song- and Nuttall (or Gambel sparrows), an Anna's hummer doing his power-dive and whistle over his mate, brown and spotted towhees. For some reason or other the ubiquitous wrentits did not come, nor did the wrens return. A thrasher-road- runner duet at close range. Neo continued to hang around me like a persistent fly and had just taken a worm from my fingers when an outburst of thrasher song from the Sampson territory 250 yards to the south caused him to dash up into the apple tree at my back, where he broke into instant full-song within 6 feet of my ears. He kept this up for over five minutes, Rhody contributing his part. I was now standing between a road-runner and a thrasher, each in full song and neither over 7 feet from me. This is the unique experience referred to in the marginal note. Neo's song causes N2 to come back and sing too. Hermit thrush comes. The effect of Neo's song upon N4 was almost instantaneous. She ran and flew to the pine tree just behind Rhody and perched about 15 feet beyond him and sang full song, using, I thought, some of Neo's phrases. At the same time a hermit thrush ran to the pine and added its "chucking" call. For a time I had two thrashers, a road-runner and a Nuttall sparrow singing at the same time and quail, spotted towhees and a hermit thrush uttering their calls, all nearby.