BIRDS OF THE REGION 133 



birds, — yellow-headed, rusty, Brewer's, red-wings, and 

 cowbirds, — swarm into the valley in fall and spring, 

 as do also the white-winged buntings, longspurs, j uncos, 

 many other sparrows, horned larks, meadowlarks, and 

 some warblers and vireos. 



The birds of greatest interest, however, are the 

 native breeding or resident species, many of which are of 

 peculiar desert forms able to live at considerable dis- 

 tances from water, or are entirely without a visible 

 source of water supply even during the nesting season. 

 Others remain always within easy reach of water and 

 serve as useful guides to the location of springs or 

 waterholes. A few are valuable game birds, while 

 some are important scavengers. Some of the predatory 

 birds are exceedingly useful, and others are more or less 

 harmful from man's point of view. Some of the 

 seed-eating birds occasionally injure crops to a slight 

 extent, but they also protect the crops by destroying 

 myriads of weed seeds, while the insectivorous birds 

 are as indispensable a part of the desert economy as 

 they are in more fertile sections of the country. 



The scaled quail, blue quail or cotton-top (Fig. 50), 

 while generally distributed over the valleys, in canyons, 

 and on the open hill country, is found usually within 

 easy reach of some drinking place. They are almost 

 as fleet on foot as the rabbits with which they range, 

 and do not mind running a mile or two for a drink of 

 water. Large flocks visited the cave buildings daily 

 for the scattered grain we kept out for them and the 

 sparrows, and also visited the spring in the next canyon 

 a mile away and a rock tank a couple of miles below 



