^°190?^] HoLLisTER, Birds of the Region about Needles, Cat. 455 



BIRDS OF THE REGION ABOUT NEEDLES, 

 CALIFORNIA. 



BY N. HOLLISTER. 



Plate VIII. 



In the spring of 1905, while engaged in field work for the United 

 States Biological Survey, I spent some weeks in the vicinity of the 

 Colorado River near the point where California, Nevada, and 

 Arizona meet. The region is interesting from an ornithological 

 point of view as little work has been done there since the days 

 when Fort Mohave was a military post.^ 



Arriving in the region from the west I spent from April 10 to 

 16 at Goffs (Blake postoffice), California, a station on the Santa 

 Fe railroad between Bagdad and Needles and about twenty-five 

 miles west of the Colorado River. The territory surrounding Goffs 

 is extreme desert, a series of bare rocky hills and sandy flats with 

 no trees whatever except a few scrubby tree yuccas about the 

 bases of the hills. The flat districts are partly covered with a 

 growth of the creosote bush (Covillea tridentata) and other desert 

 shrubs, which are especially common and of greater size along 

 the numerous dry washes; it was here that most of the birtls were 

 found. 



On April 16 I moved east to Needles, a small town on the Cali- 

 fornia bank of the Colorado River, where collecting was carried 

 on until May 1. Two days were then spent on the opposite side 

 in Mohave County, Arizona. On May 6, in company with a 

 Mohave Indian, I went into camp in the low bottomlands of the 

 California side ten miles above Needles. May 17 we moved camp 

 to Twin Lakes, half a mile below the California-Nevada line, 

 from which point excursions were made up the west bank of the 

 river into southern Nevada to extend the known ranges of various 

 species into that State. On the 25th I moved across the river to 



1 In the summer of 1902 Mr. F. Stephens collected in the Providence Mountains, 

 about Needles, and at other points along the river, also in the interests of the Bio- 

 logical Survey, and published the results of his bird work, an interesting and valua- 

 ble list, in ' The Condor,' Vol. V, Nos. 3 and 4, 1903. 



