860 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
they are picturesque and striking features of this wild scene; an oc- 
casional lonely great blue heron is to be seen, perchance passing to 
his immense nest on the rocks; the savage duck hawk makes frequent 
raids from his eyrie high up on an inaccessible crag; and multitudes 
of violet-green swallows skim the water’s surface or, hovering about 
the honeycombed cliffs, pass in and out to their nests like a swarm of 
bees. 
Southeastward beyond the low mountains that encompass Pyramid 
and Winnemucca Lakes there is a broad desert, the bed of an ancient 
lake, most of it level and marked by numerous alkali flats, hot, arid, 
and practically treeless save for the oases made by irrigation. Here 
are the “sinks” of the Carson and Humboldt Rivers, whose wide 
marshes, grown up to tules, flags, and rank grass, are alike in au- 
tumn, spring, and summer attractive to multitudes of birds. Strange- 
appearing white-faced glossy ibises, that move from place to place 
in flocks of often regular outline, much after the fashion of geese, 
line up along the shore or the edge of the marsh in their search for 
breakfast or dinner; night herons patrol the lagoons and the bayous 
by day and retire to the tops of the bushes or low trees at night; 
many kinds of ducks gabble over their possessions among the reeds; 
various wading birds pursue their wonted peaceful vocation on the 
flats; red-winged blackbirds chatter among the tules, or fly here and 
there in quest of food or nest material; and coots swim unconcernedly 
to and fro, unconsciously conspicuous in their gray plumage. A 
quiet contented community is here in this marsh in the desert, whose 
inhabitants live together in perfect harmony, and with rarely a dis- 
turbance from without. But sometimes that fierce marauder of the 
plains, the prairie falcon, appears on one of his forays. Then what 
a change! The varied voices are suddenly hushed; the blackbirds 
drop hurriedly into the rushes; the herons disappear; the ibises 
mount into the sky or cringe statue-like in their places; the shore 
birds scatter to the shelter that before they disdained; the ducks and 
coots scurry for their hiding places; and soon the place that just 
now was instinct with life and vocal with happiness is to every intent 
deserted by all except him that is the cause of the panic. Yet this 
dreaded intruder has learned by repeated experience not to advertise 
his coming, and possibly even now, as the signal of distress is being 
passed along, he has secured and is bearing away his victim. 
From these marshes on every side the level desert reaches far 
away to the hills, in places bare, but mostly covered with a sparse 
growth of low, thorny shrubs, tufts of salt grass, gray-green annuals, 
and bright green greasewood, the last the only relieving feature of 
the landscape. Along the bases of the hills are areas where the 
bushes, spreading often into miniature thickets, catch and hold the 
