426 Bailey, Wild Life of an Alkaline Lake. [oct. 



brush. Western Savanna Sparrows flew shyly before us from 

 sagebrush to sagebrush, Sage Thrashers disappeared with long 

 low flights over the bushes, and at one time a Sage Sparrow led 

 us a chase. Along the weedy lake border a Shrike and a flock of 

 Longspurs were seen, and on the shore of the main lake one evening 

 a buffy immature Mountain Plover was taken near where a flock 

 of sandpipers were feeding. Across the width of the lake Mr. 

 Bailey detected the honking of Canada Geese, and afterwards was 

 fortunate enough to see five of the splendid great birds feeding at 

 the foot of the lake. A beautiful Ring-billed Gull was also seen 

 there. Though less interesting than our small lakes, this great 

 lake, where these noble birds felt secure, had a charm of its own 

 with its wide shore line, its broad expanse — for in arid New 

 Mexico it seemed a veritable Ontario — and its ever-shifting, 

 broken lines of water-fowl. Its shore in the late afternoon when 

 the hills to the south were dark purple was flooded with slanting 

 yellow light, and as the sandpipers were peeping and making short 

 skimming flights along the beach, the marginal weedy border 

 glowed a vivid yellow-green and the sagebrush hills behind were 

 lit up till we looked upon a glowing golden shore. It was one of 

 the moments that one could imagine feathered wanderers from 

 home might remember, one of the moments that earlier in the 

 year move enraptured birds to outbursts of ecstatic song. 



But some birds' flights of fancy, it would seem, are not con- 

 trolled by the almanac, for on one of our most autumnal mornings 

 before my bewildered vision a Raven, a most matter-of-fact bird 

 one would suppose, rose circling into the air higher and higher till 

 its big black form began to grow small; as it rose, uttering a low 

 rhythmic croaking, most vernal in its enraptured suggestion. 



The lakes with their strongly alkaline water were of little interest 

 to some of the birds. A passing kingfisher whom we discovered 

 one morning on a dead tree above the tule lake looked sadly out 

 of place and, we fancied, rattled disconcertedly. In any case, before 

 night the poor disillusioned wanderer, as if reduced to extremity, 

 was perched on a tree over our muddy camp rain pools ! The next 

 morning he was nowhere to be seen. 



Small and muddy as our pools were they not only afforded water 

 for ourselves and the thirsty horses, but for flocks of passing land 



