vol. xxvun 



1911 



Bailey, A Drop of Four Thousand Feet. 223 



and spruces of the snow-covered Canadian canon above we now 

 listened to Sonoran Bush-tits and Gambel's Quail among the nut 

 pines and junipers. A flock of the Quail roosted not far from our 

 tent in the protected amphitheater and when gathering in and 

 getting settled at dusk, above the variously accented calls rose 

 one in anxious high-pitched tones drolly like a distracted voice 

 calling Where-are-you-'noiv? Where-are-you' -nowf Soon after day- 

 light, hearing small voices approaching and raising our heads from 

 our sleeping bags we saw an advancing procession of the plump 

 Quail with recurved top knots over their bills, their black throats 

 and buffy belly patches conspicuous as they faced us. On they 

 came, talking in low tones, but suddenly a warning tut, tut, inter- 

 rupted their conversation. They had discovered the cook at his 

 camp fire ! A few steps more and they stopped, standing in two 

 pretty squads under the junipers. 



Just over the bank another flock of about twenty-five Quail 

 were flushed from a field bordering the San Francisco, the Rio 

 San Francisco which we had forded fifty-two times in one canon 

 a few weeks before ! Following up the banks of the river we found 

 Meadowlarks, Killdeer, and Ravens, and spoke with an old hunter 

 going to a pond back of the dam for Teal ; but then we came to a 

 canon where the swift stream with its usual disregard of travelers 

 was swinging against one and then the other of its sheer walls, so 

 we turned off into a dry gulch. The gulch proved to be richly 

 wooded with sycamore, ash, box elder, cottonwood, mulberry, 

 live oak, and soapberry, and was so full of birds that it was hard 

 to leave. There were Woodhouse Jays squawking, a little Texas 

 Woodpecker with barred back giving its shrill call as it drilled on 

 the oaks, Audubon Warblers jerking out their sharp tchack', Gray 

 Titmice whistling, and fascinating little Bridled Titmice flitting 

 about the trees singing a tinkling Chickadee song; while invisible 

 Canon Towhees, Rock Wrens, and a Scott Sparrow kept us peering 

 up the stony banks of the gulch. On a mesquite flat above the 

 gulch Pipits from the peaks were seen. 



We had left the snowy Canadian mountains deserted by all but 

 a few of the hardier birds and by our 4000 foot drop, paralleling 

 the vertical migration, had come down into the warm Sonoran 

 valley where the weeds were still full of seeds and the trees of 



