l)r. E. Coues — Field Notes on Lopliortyx ganibeli. 47 



of piiion {Pinus edulis) and cedar {Juniperus pachyderma, and 

 one or two other species), alternate with barren and desolate 

 lava raal-pais*; hill-sides arc covered with oak, mezquite {Alya- 

 robia fflandulosa, the sweet "beans" of which are valuable for 

 food), and nianzanita [Ardostaphylus tomentosus) (literally " little 

 apple," from the appearance of the berries) ; while the borders of 

 running streams are fringed with cotton-woods {Populus moni- 

 lifera) and willows and walnuts, and fenced in by almost im- 

 penetrable walls of grape-vines, wild gooseberries, green-briar, 

 rose-bushes, and, it seems, every variety of rank luxuriant under- 

 growth. 



The region thus sketched in the most meagre outline is 

 Arizona Territory, only just now beginning to be reclaimed from 

 its pristine wildness, and appropriated by the white man for his 

 own use, on the principle that " might makes right " — a country 

 where man stands face to face with Nature herself, and must 

 sturdily wrest from her his subsistence or perish. Civilization, 

 in Arizona, is only, as yet, like the few desultory, hesitating 

 drops that form the avant- couriers of the approaching shower. 

 Men live scattered over the country in little knots, gathered 

 together for mutual safety, and the intervening distances are 

 full of danger and difficulty. Steam has, as yet, shortened no 

 one of Arizona's miles, nor lent its giant strength to the farmer 

 or the mechanic ; and so rudely simple is the mode of life, that 

 Arizona seems, to one reared in refinement and luxury, hardly 

 less strange in its society than in the want of it. But here is 

 the chosen home of this beautiful Plumed Quail ; and here, too, 

 must the naturalist make his home for awhile, if he would learn 

 its habits. 



Walk abroad with me this bright October morning. We 

 must not go far, or our scalps may decorate an Apache wigwam 

 to-morrow. How different is everything from the scene pre- 

 sented at the same season in New England ! Mountain, plain, 

 and valley, forest, stream, and desert, are each cast in a widely 

 diverse mould. The fauna and the flora, and the very rocks, 

 are of a new, strange type ; while the atmosphere itself seems 



* The term applied to a country whose surface is covered with more or 

 less comminuted results of volcanic eruption. 



