264 Dr. E. Coues. — Fi'om Arizuiui to the Pacific. 



numerous are the nests at some points, that one spot has re- 

 ceived and still bears the name of " Swallow-nest Bend ;" and 

 not unfrequently in the midst of the colony of Swallows is 

 placed the rude nest of Ardea herodias, flat upon some project- 

 ing ledge of rock. 



Leaving Fort Mojave, which I did on the 30th of October, 

 before us to the westward lies the Colorado desert — a barren 

 waste of sand and rock which stretches everywhere between the 

 river and the fertile and habitable portions of Southern Cali- 

 fornia. It would be difficult to imagine a region more uninviting 

 or more devoid of varied forms of animal life. It would be a pro- 

 fitless tract for an ornithologist expecting to find variety, though 

 still the few species found are interesting. For whole days hardly 

 more than the Ravens would relieve the monotony of wearisome 

 travel. I cannot forbear to quote from my friend Dr. Newberry, 

 who must have written under the inspiration of the surrounding 

 desolation. " Even on the most sterile and inhospitable portions 

 of the central desert, where heaven withholds her genial showers 

 and earth refuses every tribute to beauty or comfort ; where 

 stern and unrelenting sterility reigns supreme and barren sands 

 and rough and ragged rocks, bleached and burnt in the eternal 

 blaze of a cloudless sun, sear the eyeball; here, perched on 

 some blasted pine, the presiding genius of the surrounding de- 

 solation, the Raven always sat, and as we defiled past, over the 

 trackless waste, gave us the malediction of his discordant croak." 

 Except the ubiquitous and omnipresent Ravens and an occa- 

 sional Anthus ludovicianus, hardly a bird was seen* for some 

 days after leaving the Colorado, until, crossing the Providence 

 Mountains, we encamped at Soda Lake, the " Sink" of the 

 Mojave river, which, rising in the San Bernadino Mountains 

 of California and flowing in an easterly direction towards the 

 Coloi-ado, is stopped by the Providence Mountains, and quietly 

 sinks in the sand of the desert. Its bed is usually nearly or 

 quite dry, except in spots, for many miles from its sink, and 



* Dr. Cooper tells me that on this portion of the route he met with 

 Poospiza bilineata, P. belli, and Camjrylorhynchus brunneicajnllus. The 

 latter, he says, is emphatically and almost exclusively a Cactus-Wren, 

 always found among, and breeding in, plants of this family. 



