WINGED LIFE 



189 



our childhood ; and the bobolink rising from 

 salt-bush and yucca, singing as he rises, is the 

 bobolink of ancient days. At times there are 

 troops of magpies that come and go across the 

 waste, and at other times troops of blue-jays. 

 And high in air through the warmth of spring 

 and the cold of autumn there are great flocks 

 of ducks, geese, brant, divers, shags, willet, 

 curlew, swinging along silently to the southern 

 or northern waterways. They seldom pause, 

 even when following the Colorado River, unless 

 in need of water. On the mesas and uplands 

 one sometimes sees a group of sand-hill cranes 

 walking about and indulging in a crazy dance 

 peculiarly their own, but the sight is no lon- 

 ger a common one. 



And again the prey what of the prey ? Has 

 Nature left the beetles, the bugs, the worms, 

 the bees, completely at the pleasure of the bird's 

 beak ? No ; not completely, though it must 

 be acknowledged that she has not provided 

 much defensive armor for them individually. 

 She incases her beautiful blue and yellow 

 beetles in hard shells that other insects cannot 

 break through, but they are flimsy defences 

 against the mocking-bird. To bugs and worms 

 and bees she gives perhaps a sting, deadly 



