130 



THE OOLOGIST. 



awaiting our teams and supplies until 

 November 11th, when we bade a ling- 

 ering adieu to civilization as represent- 

 ed by the hybred saloon-hotel at wh ch 

 we had been stopping. About the first 

 birds 1 saw after leaving town were 

 Linnets. They seemed to be every- 

 where, filling the quiet desert air with 

 noisy chirpings and even some attempts 

 at song. A single Mocking bird, the 

 only one I saw on the western side of 

 Death Valley, made his home in the 

 little town we were leaving, and his 

 daily oratorio followed us as we left. 

 Bird life— other than the Linnets and a 

 solitary pair of Ravens— was very lim- 

 ited until we reached Blackwater wells, 

 where a few White-crowned Sparrows 

 were scratching about among the brush. 

 Here, too, we saw a solitary Jack- 

 rabbit, which went off on a tangent as 

 if the whole world were after him. 

 These wells— though there is water in 

 but one of them now — were dug by 

 General Wingate nearly half a century 

 ago when he passed through this region 

 in pursuit of renegade Indians. Be- 

 fore they watered our horses at this 

 place, the men took forty-six dead rats 

 out of the well, in which brackish, 

 slime-covered water stood about five 

 feet deep. How the birds get water 

 here I could not see, but from the num- 

 ber of small birds gathered around, I 

 judge that it forms a watering place 

 for whole counties full of them. 



At Granite Springs, our next stop, 

 where we spent the night of this first 

 day, we put up a bunch of quail. 

 Someway these little blue coated fel- 

 lows always seem like old friends to 

 me, especially when I meet tbem in a 

 far-away corner. I suppose these were 

 our common Valley Quail— though they 

 may have been Arizona Quail, of which 

 species I will speak later. Here too, I 

 found feathers of the Big Horned Owls, 

 and heard their sonorous "whoo-whoo- 

 who, whoo," with the third syllable 

 shortest and the last two uttered very 



close together. "Back east" I have 

 heard my elders call them "hoot" owls, 

 but since I have grown to years of 

 ornithological discretion, they are 

 known to me as Bubo orginiamis pa- 

 cificus — but, gentle reader, I'll promise 

 not to throw any more chunks of Latin 

 about promiscuously. Little Rock 

 Wrens were not uncommon among the 

 huge boulders of Pilot Butte, and I saw 

 a Roadrunner dodging about in the 

 scrub below camp. The Ravens seemed 

 to have made up their minds to stay 

 with us "for better or for worse." 

 Thev perched on the rocks a few hun- 

 dred yards away but seldom came with- 

 in shotgun range. They stayed with 

 us all the way through to the Nevada 

 line and back again, leaving us, on our 

 return trip, at this place. Every time 

 we pulled out of a camp— even if only 

 after our midday meal — this pair of 

 sable satellites settled down for a feast 

 on the refuse which we left. About 

 half an hour after we had left camp, 

 here they would come, flapping slowly 

 along in our wake. At last they became 

 so friendly that Colonel Bailey forbade 

 any one shooting at them. 



At Leaches Point— two days march 

 farther on — 1 saw two or three of our 

 common Mourning Doves, while down 

 among the willows about the spring 

 were four or five Goldfinches, though 

 of what species I did not ascertain. 

 The water was the best of any we had 

 on the trip, evidently coming throngh 

 a fissure in the solid rock for a long 

 distance. At this place, the lofty and 

 precipitious mountain walled in our 

 camp on three tides; on the fourth, the 

 rolling table land sinks away to the 

 creek bed. From the very center of 

 the mountain side mentioned above, a 

 huge rock some sixty feet in height, 

 projects. This rock is a very accurate 

 likeness of an elephants head, the trunk, 

 tusks, eyes and ears appearing with re- 

 markable fidelity to nature. That this 

 was carved by the elements seems prob- 



