THE VOICE OF THE DESERT 



170 



though they seemed, to seed. "At least," they seemed to 

 say, "our species is assured another chance." And if this 

 tendency is aheady dominant in a morning glory, human 

 beings will probably continue to accept it in themselves 

 also, v^hether, by human standards, it is v^ise or not. 



As I w^rite this another spring has just come around. With 

 a regularity in v^hich there is something pleasantly comic, 

 all the little romances, dramas and tragedies are acting 

 themselves out once more, and I seize the opportunity to 

 pry benevolently. 



Yesterday I watched a pair of hooded orioles — ^he, bril- 

 liant in orange and black; she, modestly yellow green — 

 busy about a newly constructed nest hanging from the 

 swordlike leaves of a yucca, where one would have been 

 less surprised to find the lemon yellow cousin of these 

 birds which builds almost exclusively in the yucca. From 

 this paradise I drove away the serpent — -in this case a 

 three-foot diamondback rattler who was getting uncom- 

 fortably close to the nesting site — and went on to flush out 

 of the grass at least a dozen tiny GambeFs quail whose 

 male parent, hovering close by, bobbed his head plume 

 anxiously as he tried to rally them again. A quarter of a 

 mile away a red and black Gila monster was sunning him- 

 self on the fallen trunk of another yucca, and, for -all I 

 know, he too may have been feeling some stirring of the 

 spring, though I can hardly say that he showed it. 



From birds as brightly colored as the orioles one expects 

 only gay domesticity and lighthearted solicitude. For that 

 reason I have been more interested to follow the home life 

 of the road runner, that unbird-like bird whom we chose 

 at the beginning as a desert dweller par excellence. One 



