A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces 163 



Frio was filled with coarse gravel, and for the 

 most part dry as a bone on the surface, the 

 water seeping through underneath, and only 

 appearing in occasional deep holes. These 

 deep holes or ponds never fail, even after a 

 year's drouth; they were filled with fish. One 

 lay quite near the ranch house, under a bold 

 rocky bluff; at its edge grew giant cypress 

 trees. In the hollows and by the watercourses 

 were occasional groves of pecans, live-oaks, 

 and elms. Strange birds hopped among the 

 bushes; the chaparral cock a big, handsome 

 ground-cuckoo of remarkable habits, much 

 given to preying on small snakes and lizards 

 ran over the ground with extraordinary 

 rapidity. Beautiful swallow-tailed king-birds 

 with rosy plumage perched on the tops of the 

 small trees, and soared and flitted in graceful 

 curves above them. Blackbirds of many kinds 

 scuttled in flocks about the corrals and out- 

 buildings around the ranches. Mocking- 

 birds abounded, and were very noisy, singing 

 almost all the daytime, but with their usual 

 irritating inequality of performance, won- 

 derfully musical and powerful snatches of 

 song being interspersed with imitations of 

 other bird notes and disagreeable squalling. 

 Throughout the trip I did not hear one of 



