4 THE WILSON QUARTERLY. 



we come to some giant cactus and away go a pair of Gila 

 Woodpeckers without waiting for a shot. Here is a chance 

 to hide behind a busli and await their return, with a strong 

 probability that you will tire of it and start on before they 

 come back. They are wild about their nesting places, and 

 you have to watch for them, or shoot them as they are feed- 

 ing on some of the dead trees of the river bottom, where 

 they seem tame enough. 



On this route, one day I secured a pair of Baird's Wood- 

 peckers. I can call them nothing else, though they show 

 more white on forehead and less on back and sides of head 

 than my Texas specimens. The central pair of rectrices 

 are also spotted, and the peculiar smoky brown of the nasal 

 tufts scarcely shows at all. I got these birds in the early 

 morning, and there was something in the slant rays of 

 sunlight coming across the desert that magnified every 

 object, and they looked to me as large as Pileated Wood- 

 peckers. I crept up behind some bushes and actually 

 fired a charge of No. 8 shot at one. and when I went for 

 my game could not understand how it could be so small. 

 I have never seen anything like it before nor since, but 

 in a country that can produce a mirage every day in 

 the year, we need not be surprised at anything. 



But the arroyo we are following broadens and deepens 

 with large trees, and bird life increases. Quails are becom- 

 ing very numerous and several species of warblers abound. 

 Of these the Sonora Yellow, Pileolated, Western Yellow- 

 throat, and Orange-crowned are most common, while the 

 neat little Lucy's Warbler is by no means scarce. It is a 

 tax on time and patience however to get many of the last, 

 for they persist in keeping on the o})posite side of a thick 

 bush, and after you have waited awhile for a shot, away 

 they go to another, to repeat the operation. 



A.t length we reach the broad bottom lands of the valley, 

 with a large growth of trees and shrubbery, and we find 

 game more abundant and tamer than we have ever seen it 

 anywhere. Here are Gambel's Paitridge and Mourning 

 Doves by countless thousands, and it seems as if there was 

 a Jack Rabbit or Cotton-tail under every bush, with fresh 



