204 THE STORY OF A BIRD LOVER 



I have enumerated these birds without dwelling 

 much upon their habits and characteristics; but 

 a future chapter will, I trust, show sufficient 

 reason for this. 



The altitude of Riverside above the sea is given 

 by the Government Survey as twenty-two hun- 

 dred feet. The only other locality where I made 

 anything like a detailed investigation of bird life 

 at this time, and there only for a few days, was at 

 the headwaters of Mineral Creek, not far distant, 

 an altitude approximating five thousand feet. 

 Here most of the birds seen at Riverside were also 

 found. Once I saw a great blue heron fishing 

 in one of the pools high up in the mountains, 

 and the black-headed grosbeak and the black- 

 throated sparrow were both found breeding in 

 early June. 



I will now briefly discuss some of the salient 

 features which characterize the watercourses 

 and mountains of southern Arizona. The con- 

 ventional conception of a river would be wide 

 of the mark here. The rivers are fed, as all 

 properly constructed rivers should be, by the 

 tiny streams and brooks that flow into them 

 through the more considerable branches into 

 which they ramify. If it would not be too Irish 

 a way of putting it, I should say that the mouths 

 of the streams in this part of Arizona are char- 

 acterized by absence of water. For instance, I 



