362 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
performance is by no means monotonous or unattractive; or, con- 
fiding in our friendship, he may even lead us to the spot where, 
protected under an overhanging ledge or hidden away in a crevice 
of the rocks, is his little home. His lot, with several voracious 
mouths to feed in this all too barren land, might readily seem to be a 
hard one, but this is only apparent, for the desert yields to the patient 
toil of this little worker far more than falls under the gaze of the 
passing traveler. 
A region of dry hills and vales, with occasional mountain ranges, 
succeeds the Carson Desert on the east, extending, with scarce an in- 
terruption more important than broad valleys, all the way to Utah 
and the Great Salt Lake. Typical desert vegetation covers this 
whole area: greasewood and other thorny shrubs in the lower val- 
leys and on the hot slopes; sagebrush on the higher ground; and on 
many of the hills scattered junipers, which with their deep color give 
a little more variety to a needy landscape. 
Characteristic forms of bird life, too, are here to be found. 
Haunting the cliffs, the canyons, and the rocky slopes, wherever its 
fancy dictates, the Say phoebe becomes almost an essential part of 
the scene, and many a time, though out of sight, announces its pres- 
ence far up the hillside by a tremulous, mournful call. Perched often 
on some commanding outpost of the cliff, or on even so humble a place 
as a fence-post by the roadside, it makes frequent sallies into the air 
in pursuit of its prey, or at times, as it seems, simply in sport. It 
nests usually in some niche along the cliff, on a little shelf in some 
cave, in an old well, or about the timbers of an abandoned cabin, 
much after the manner of the familiar eastern phoebe. 
Few birds are more characteristic of the chaparral throughout. 
this region, and in other parts of the Great Basin as well, even toward 
the south, than the white-rumped shrike. Sinking from the sum- 
mit of the bush on which it may happen to rest, it passes in rapid, 
undulating, well-sustained flight through or barely above the brush, 
its gray and white particolored plumage curiously suggestive of the 
mockingbird. Quite as individual a trait as its flight is its almost 
motionless pose on the top of a bush or post, where it waits and 
watches with seemingly limitless patience. But let an unwary grass- 
hopper cross its vision, or even a thoughtless little sparrow venture 
too near, and instantly it dashes away in pursuit of the intended 
prey. Ruthless, cruel, and wasteful it is, and has fairly earned 
the reputation that its name “butcher-bird ” implies; for, not content 
with killing for use, it carries on the work of slaughter as long as 
opportunity remains, and, after its appetite is sated, impales its fur- 
ther victims upon the long thorns of the desert shrubs or the barbs 
of the wire fences. Nor is this, even in such a land of famine, a wise 
