THE VOICE OF THE DESERT -j^ 



that the psychological effect is curiously similar. It is cozy 

 to be shut in, to have a good excuse for looking out of the 

 window or into oneself. A really blazing day slows down 

 the restless activity of a community very much as a bliz- 

 zard does in regions which have them. Without the one or 

 the other any society, I imagine, would become intoler- 

 ably extroverted. Where there is either, a sort of meteor- 

 ological sabbath is usually observed even by those who 

 keep no other. 



In Connecticut the chickadees came to see me when I 

 did not go to see them. In Arizona the desert birds do the 

 same, though the attraction — which was certainly not me 

 in either case — is water rather than food. A cmrved-billed 

 thrasher, his threatening beak haH-open like the mouth of 

 a panting dog, approaches defiantly, scattering the smaller 

 birds as he comes. A cactus wren, the largest and boldest 

 of the wren tribe, impudently invades my porch and even 

 jumps to a window sill to peer at me through the glass. 

 And as I know from experience, he will invade even the 

 house if I leave a door open and will carry away for his 

 nest any material available. Only the large white-winged 

 dove does not seem to notice that this is an unusually 

 warm day. He will fly away to Mexico at the first hint that 

 summer is over and now, when the temperature in the sun 

 must be at least 120 degrees, he seems to be saying, "But 

 we don't call this hot in Campeche." 



From my window I see also the furry and the scaly as 

 well as the feathered. A jack rabbit approaches cautiously 

 and after looking carefully about dares to lower his head 

 long enough to take a long drink; a few minutes later a 

 lizard does the same. What did either do before I kept a 

 vessel always full? Most of the time, I imagine, they did 



