172 In Touch with Nature. 



variety of animals should choose so arid a region, 

 when capable of migrating to others more in- 

 viting. Here were birds in abundance, nesting in 

 scattered oaks, and finding abundant food-supply 

 among the heated rocks and repellent cacti. It 

 is true, I was told that the rainy season should 

 have commenced before this, and that the birds 

 simply anticipated the coming change ; but could 

 they not have waited for it ? In the East we cer- 

 tainly associate abundance of animal life with the 

 constant presence of water, and never an upland 

 field so teeming with creatures of every kind as 

 the low-lying marshes with their ranker vegeta- 

 tion. The river valleys within reach of these 

 Arizonan hills have not much to commend them : 

 still, that they were not over-crowded, and the 

 hills deserted, was a surprise ; the more so that 

 Professor Henshaw, our authority on the orni- 

 thology of this region, states that this over-crowd- 

 ing near water commonly occurs. However, here 

 among the uplifted rocks were the birds and a 

 goodly company of less prominent creatures, to 

 which I turned again and again, notwithstanding 

 the grandeur of the landscape spread before me. 



