186 



THE DESERT 



His strong 

 legs. 



Rush birds. 



of a dozen or sixteen join with other families 

 to make a great covey of several hundred, or in 

 the old days before the market-hunters came, 

 several thousand. And they all run. The 

 bottom of the quail's foot is always itching for 

 the ground ; and he seems never so happy as 

 when leaving the enemy far behind him. His 

 little legs take him through the brush so fast 

 that you cannot keep up with him. Every 

 muscle in him is as tough as a watch-spring. 

 You may wound him, but you have not yet got 

 him. He will creep into some cactus patch or 

 crawl down a snake-hole elude you in some 

 way and in the end die game just out of your 

 reach. 



There are few trees upon the desert and few 

 bushes of any size ; yet there are birds of the 

 tree and the bush here just as there are birds 

 of the air and the ground. The most of them 

 seem the same kind of linnets, sparrows, and 

 thrushes that are seen along the California 

 coast ; though probably they have some peculiar 

 desert characteristic. I cannot see any differ- 

 ence between the little woodpeckers here and 

 the woodpeckers elsewhere ; yet this desert va- 

 riety flies from sahuaro to sahuaro, alights on 

 the spiny trunk with a little thump, and im- 



