456 HoLLisTER, Birds of the Region about Needles, Cal. [oc? 



Fort Mohave, Arizona, and worked there until May 29, when I 

 returned to Needles. 



The land bordering the Colorado River from the Santa Fe 

 railroad bridge north to beyond the Nevada line is chiefly bottom- 

 land over which the river rises each spring. This bottomland 

 varies from a narrow strip along the banks to wide areas several 

 miles across. Just at and below the Nevada line are the wide 

 bottoms of the California side, though in a great bend of the river 

 below Needles are extensive flats. At the edge of the bottoms rise 

 low mesas extending back from the river and soon developing into 

 hills of considerable size which stretch back to the mountains 

 bordering the valley. The mesa and hills are desert^ covered for 

 the most part with a sparse growth of creosote bushes and rab- 

 bit brush. The bottomland is thickly covered with arrow-weed 

 (Pluchea sericea), willow, mesquite, and screw-bean with fine 

 groves and forests of cottonwood. Here and there throughout the 

 bottoms are ponds and lakes, some with a growth of tules about 

 their shores. 



On May 31 I left the river for Ivanpah Valley, some fifty miles- 

 northwest on the California-Nevada line, where I collected until 

 June 6. Ivanpah Valley is a large basin, a flat desert tract nearly 

 surrounded by hills and mountains. The elevation of the floor 

 of the valley at Ivanpah station is about 3500 feet. At the northern 

 end of the valley, some six or eight miles from the station, is a large 

 dry lake bed, and the entire valley is t}']Dical desert with little Avater. 

 From the dry washes in the center of the valley there is a gradual 

 rise in each direction to the bases of the hills and mountains. Creo- 

 sote bushes, grease-brush, and cactuses form the conspicuous 

 vegetation of the valley proper and on the higher ground bordering 

 the hills are a few tree yuccas. From June 6 to 12 was spent with 

 a pack outfit on what is locally known as New York Mountain at 

 the southern end of the valley. It is the highest point on the east- 

 ern end of the Providence Range, just well within the State of 

 California, and was an agreeable change after the extreme heat of 

 the arid desert of Ivanpah Valley. On the hills surrounding the 

 mountain junipers appear and become abundant and larger higher 

 up. About some small springs in the lower foothills are a few 

 willows and over the whole mountain are patches of pinon (Pinu» 



