Decembee 30, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



963 



higher, at which hawks and mountain sheep 

 habitually watered. From time to time dur- 

 ing May attention was caught by a rushing 

 sound in the air above camp, for which no 

 cause was for some time visible ; it came 

 unexpectedly, and by the time the eyes were 

 turned in its direction nothing was to be 

 seen. Finally my temporary companion, Jose 

 — a Papago Indian trailer of notably acute 

 vision — set himself facing down the canyon 

 and watching the space above and before him; 

 after some hours of patient waiting the sound 

 recurred, and he was rewarded by sight of a 

 pigeon coming into view in the line of his 

 vision and vol-planing down to the nest-trees; 

 and thereafter glimpses of passing shadows in 

 the air were twice or thrice caught an instant 

 before the rushing sound was heard — ^for 

 sometimes the birds went up to the high 

 tanque for water and vol-planed back with 

 such incredible swiftness as to be nearly indis- 

 tinguishable by the eye except when they 

 chanced to cross the line of vision already 

 directed and focused about their distance. 



At Tinajas Altas some fifteen or twenty 

 pairs of the pigeons were nesting in May. 

 The nests, chiefly in the thick branches of an 

 ironwood tree with three or four in neighbor- 

 ing mesquites in a little tree clump at the 

 mouth of the canyon, like those in the haw 

 trees of Iowa, were rude platforms of twigs 

 partly covered with loose feathers and excre- 

 ment, though apparently old and repaired for 

 the season. The old birds were seen feeding 

 on buds and seeds, including the fleshy blos- 

 soms of the Dasylyrion (none were taken at 

 this time). Toward the end of May the 

 young appeared in the trees about the nests, 

 black, ill-fledged, fat and clumsy, and were 

 apparently still fed and watered by the pa- 

 rents for a day or twa; then the whole colony, 

 young and old, unexpectedly disappeared 

 about the first of June. Thenceforward until 

 late July, midsummer heat held Tinajas Altas 

 hard, and vitality waned save in the growth 

 of the Dasylyrion on the rocks and the cacti 

 on the plains; the ehuckawalla went into esti- 

 vation in deep crevices in the granite, and 

 most of the other lizards disappeared, some of 



them to come out of their holes occasionally 

 during the early morning; the active little 

 striped squirrel no longer ran over the heated 

 rocks; the buzzing insects and humming- 

 birds of May were gone, and the silence of 

 the sun-scorching day was seldom broken save 

 by the occasional shrieks of hawks far up in 

 the air or by the rustle of the wings of vul- 

 tures or the leap or bleat of mountain sheep 

 seeking water. Toward the end of July the 

 cactus fruits — chiefly of saguaro and pitahaya 

 — began to ripen, and the seeds of the scanty 

 grasses and other inconspicuous plants ap- 

 proached maturity; then California quail ap- 

 peared in pairs of adults, each with an ex- 

 tensive brood of young apparently at first 

 unable to fly (whence they came was a puzzle, 

 since only a single quail — a solitary male — 

 was seen or heard during May, and there was 

 no other water within a score of miles) . Next 

 came doves; and by the first of August the 

 pigeons returned, apparently in somewhat 

 larger numbers than the parents and young 

 of May combined — there were probably be- 

 tween a hundred and a hundred and fifty in 

 all. Although all watered about the same 

 time morning and afternoon, they gathered 

 about the water, rested, and flew over the 

 plain in search of food, in family groups of 

 three or four, in which the young, although 

 fully grown, were still distinguishable chiefly 

 by pallid or mottled breasts. 



The camp larder being about exhausted!, 

 some thirty of the pigeons with an equal 

 number of quail and thi-ee or four doves were 

 shot during August (two mountain sheep 

 were also shot and eaten during the season). 

 The crops of pigeon, dove and quail were 

 filled chiefly with cactus fruits, with a few 

 miscellaneous seeds. The weight of body and 

 the food value of the pigeon were somewhat 

 greater than that of the quail, two or three 

 times that of the dove; and in a fricassee with 

 rice and shredded bacon the birds were no 

 less delectable than the memorable pigeon pi© 

 of Iowa during the sixties. Toward the end 

 of August, rains occurred in the Cabeza de 

 Prieta range, a dozen miles eastward, and the 

 pigeon and quail (made timid by the shoot- 



