VOL. II. | _ Andrew Fackson Grayson. es 
And what is worse still, since the French have occupied the country business has 
been destroyed. Indeed, since my return I have had the blues most terribly—a 
malady I am not often afflicted with, because I could always find ‘‘a pleasure in 
the pathless woods.” But I will no longer trouble you wifh my sorryful complain- 
ings. There is some consolation, however, in writing to an old friend like yourself 
_ (for I feel towards you as though we had known each other from childhood). But 
to business. On my arrival I found your welcome and interesting letter of Nov. - 
15th, the first and only one received from you since my departure from Tepic for 
Mexico. It was highly satisfactory and gave me much pleasure to know of the safe 
arrival of the small collection of Socorro and Tres Marias birds, which I feared 
~ were lost. How I should liked to have visited these islands again this season, pre- 
pared to make a thorough investigation of them before I quit them; but this trip to 
Mexico has completely used me up pecuniarily, having been cleaned out most 
effectually by the miserable /adrones, both going and coming. But amid all these 
troubles I managed to save my portfolio of drawings unharmed, and this, much to 
my wonder, when we consider the ignorance of these barbarous and uncivilized 
thieves, who either take or destroy everything in their power, whether of any value 
to them or not. It seems as though a Divine Providence protected my portfolio 
and also my book of notes, which I left in Guadalajara, reluctantly, because the 
trunk in which it was, was too heavy to go in the coach; the loss of this, you 
know, would have been irreparable. My gun, however, my old and tried friend 
that has been my constant companion for years, was forced from me by the over- 
powering, half-naked, armed savages. I being the only one who had a gun in the 
diligence, resistance was impossible; my gun was caught by the coachman as a 
raised to fire. This was done just outside the city gates of Guadalajara, half an 
hour before daylight; the first occurrence of the kind that has happened to me in 
all my travels in Mexico. A similar fate awaited us on our return from the Cap- 
ital, but as I had taken the precaution against loss, we were not so badly damaged. 
In returning from Mexico I was not idle on the way in my ornithological pursuits. 
I remained some days at an old friend’s ranche near Guadalajara, who having good 
guns, dogs, and plenty of ammunition, rendered me all the assistance I could 
desire in making collections in that locality (ten leagues from Guadalajara). Some 
of the collections made there you will, I think, find interesting; you will see my 
notes upon the list. I also stopped again in Tepic; you will please notice the list 
also from that locality, and the list from this locality, as well as the one from the 
valley of Mexico, marked and numbered, agreeing with the labeled birds accompa- 
nying them. . : 
"Please send me a list with the numbers agreeing with mine, so that I may know 
with a certainty the name of each species sent as classified by you, with the Latin 
name in a clear hand. I was gladdened on the arrival of the steamer yesterday 
- from California (all my dark feelings on me) with the welcome arrival through 
Wells, Fargo & Co’s Express of a large package of books, among which was the 
“much wished for ix vol. (Birds), and also part of your “ Review of American 
_ Birds,” commencing with page 321, ending 368 on Vireonidz, and very interesting, 
but you scarcely mention the vireo from the Tres Marias (Avpochryseus) only in 
To have mentioned this bird as coming from the Marias Islands, and as 
synopsis. | : 
you say, ‘‘largest and most deeply colored of all the species,” would make it the 
