i6o Bird - Lore 



supplies water for the irrigation of a comparatively large area. This is almost 

 wholly under cultivation in cotton, sugar-cane, and alfalfa, but there are 

 stretches of bottom-lands and river-margins, subject to overflow, unfit for 

 agriculture, where wild cane and the scrubby bushes which apparently belong 

 to the natural flora of the region, still flourish. I hope in time to obtain data 

 which will show the effects of irrigation on the distribution of bird-life in this 

 and similar oases of western Peru, but the only observations I could make on 

 this occasion were passing glimpses from an automobile or car-window of 

 Sparrow Hawks, Red-breasted Troupials, Mockingbirds, Anis, several species 

 of Doves (Chcemepelia, Zenaida, Columba), Sparrows (Brachyspiza, Vola- 

 tinia, Sicalis), and Vermilion Flycatchers. The latter bird is found here in 

 two forms, one of which is the normal brown above with the crown and under- 

 parts vermilion, while the other is uniform dark sooty brown with, at times, a 

 red feather or two. The question whether the two breed together or represent 

 distinct 'species' presents an inviting problem in dichromatism or mutation 

 which remains to be solved. 



December 4, I sailed from Lima for Mollendo, Peru's most southern port, 

 arriving there December 7. The coast here is extremely rugged, with outlying 

 rocky islands tenanted by seals and Cormorants. 



Following a phenomenal rainfall of seventy-six hours' duration, a surprising 

 growth of flowering plants appeared on the usually barren coastal plains. I 

 counted some twenty species in an hour's walk, most of them abundant and 

 blooming profusely. Every spring (November) a luxuriant growth of flowering 

 plants covers the slopes of the mountains at an altitude of from 2,000 to 3,000 

 feet, where the coastal clouds supply them with moisture; but this, it was said, 

 was the first time in forty years that such a growth had reached the margins 

 of the sea. Several species had already matured their seeds, which may lie in 

 the dust of the desert for forty more years before they germinate. 



Birds have no such means of biding a favorable time, and the conditions 

 which made millions of plants appear where none had been before seemed to 

 have exerted no influence on their numbers. I saw but four Finches during 

 my morning walk, but, doubtless, in the course of time, they wfll harvest their 

 share of the unwonted crop of seeds. 



Even from the sea the slopes of the usually brown coast range appeared 

 distinctly green, and as we climbed upward on the railroad to Arequipa, the 

 plant-growth increased in luxuriance, until at 2,800 feet it was as rank as it 

 is in the United States in August and September. There were masses of color, 

 with yellow predominating — all strange and unknown flowers, except one, the 

 heliotrope, which grew in large bushes at the sides of the track. 



Here White-throats, Swallows, and Doves were common, and a single Con- 

 dor soared overhead, doubtless tempted from his Andean heights by some dead 

 cow or burro. 



At 3,000 feet the range, against which the coastal clouds mass themselves, 



