iSSs-J Stephens on Birds of Arizona and Sonora. 22Q 



the houses, and lives more on the ground than Chamccpclia pas- 

 serine/, which 'is more abundant in the same region, but is com- 

 monest in brush. S. inca has a coarse note. I saw a little group 

 on the ground, the males strutting around the females, carrying 

 their tails nearly vertical, and cooing. As most of these Doves 

 were near houses I refrained from shooting, for the people would 

 have been alarmed by Americans firing so near them. 



At a quartz mill near Caborca we found four Americans, and 

 were glad to meet men we could converse with, our Spanish be- 

 ing too limited for satisfactory communication with the natives. 

 They were even better pleased to see a party from the United 

 States. This is a very fine collecting locality. At daybreak on 

 the morning of the x6th, I heard the cu-cu-cu-cu of Glaucidium 

 ■phalcerioides, and shot it in a Thurber's cactus. There were 

 enormous numbers of Doves in the timber. Their cooing was so 

 loud and continuous that one could scarcely distinguish any other 

 bird-note. Mclopelia leucoptera was the principal noise- 

 maker. As the sun gained height the noise diminished. We 

 felt .the heat here more than further inland, although the ther- 

 mometer averaged some 1 5 lower than at Tucson; yet the least 

 exertion made us drip with perspiration. There did not seem to 

 be a breath of air. The last water of the Altar is used up here 

 in irrigating, and we had to depend on the wells again, and they 

 proved very few. About the Poso Moroneno {poso is well) the 

 new giant cactus, Cereus pringlei, is abundant. This species is a 

 giant, averaging as tall as C. giganteus, say 30 feet for moderately 

 tall ones ; branches more numerous and both branches and trunk 

 more massive. Among the thousands of these cactuses I saw 

 were scarcely any Woodpecker holes ; probably insect life is too 

 scarce, for the Woodpeckers were seldom seen. Birds of all 

 kinds were very rare. At the San Felix mine I shot an A?/ri- 

 parus jlaviceps and two Campy lor hynchus brunneicapillus. 



After leaving the San Felix mine we saw no human being until 

 our return to the Poso Moroneno. We filled our water barrels 

 here as a precaution, and had reason to congratulate ourselves on 

 having done so, as we found the water at the Gringo Well so foul 

 that neither man nor horse would drink it. On the low sandy 

 plain, ten to twenty miles back from the Gulf, I saw thirteen 

 Harporhynchus lecontei and secured three. Another wounded 

 one escaped me by crawling into a labyrinth of squirrel holes. 



