THE-C9ni)?R 



Volume X September-October 1908 Number 



BIRDS OF A VOYAGE ON SAINTON SEA 



By J. GRINNRLL 



WITH FOUR PHOTOS BY THK AUTHOR 



ON the morning of April 19, 1908, in company with Chas. Richardson, Jr., 

 and Donham, the boatman, I started from Mecca, California, for a cruise 

 on Salton Sea. Our object was to ascertain what waterbirds were nesting 

 on or about the Sea, and to secure specimens of birds, mammals and reptiles, all in 

 the interests of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, at the University of California. 



Mecca, where our base camp was located under a clump of cotton woods by an 

 artesian w^ell, is a station (once called Walters) on the Southern Pacific about a 

 mile west of the westernmost encroachment of Salton Sea. The railroad towards 

 Yuma used to be a straight track eastward from Mecca past the now submerged 

 site of the Salton salt works; but the rising water compelled the building of one 

 and then a second new route out around the north margin of the Sea. The line of 

 telegraph poles out into the water, successively deeper and deeper, until only the 

 crosstree of the last one shows above the surface, marks the course of the old route. 



From our camp at Mecca, we were compelled to carry our outfit down the 

 railroad to the landing, a gravelly beach flanking the railroad which is protected 

 from the waves by a tier of sand-bags. Our launch was unmoored from its berth 

 in a half-submerged mesquite clump, and after the usual tinkering with the gaso- 

 lene engine we were under way. 



The boat had been christened the "Vinegaroon", which word Donham told us 

 was the Mexican name for a curious "bug" (a Solpugid I judged from his de- 

 scription) whose movements are very quick and as rapid in one direction as in an- 

 other. But we found that our craft could hardly bear out the analogy. Nine 

 hours were occupied in covering the forty miles to our first objective point, 

 Echo Island. 



