188 



THE DESERT 



Doves and 

 grosbeaks. 



The lark 

 andflieker. 



dinary bird and is also duller in coloring, but 

 hi other respects he seems not different. He 

 breeds on the desert, building his nest in the 

 pitahaya ; and he and his mate then have a 

 standing quarrel with their neighbors for the 

 rest of the summer. There is not in the whole 

 feathered tribe a more quarrelsome scrap of 

 vivacity than the humming-bird. 



The dwarf dove common to Sonora, the 

 oven-bird, the red grosbeak, and many other 

 of the smaller birds known to civilization, are 

 found on the desert ; but apparently with no 

 special faculty for overcoming its hardships. 

 This is due perhaps to the fact that they are 

 not always there — are not exclusively desert 

 birds. Nor do any of the migratory birds be- 

 long to the desert, though they stop here for 

 weeks at a time in their flights north or south. 

 At almost any season of the year one sees the 

 cow-blackbird and the smaller crow-blackbird. 

 The mocking-bird comes only in the spring 

 and fall, and the lark in early summer. The 

 lark looks precisely like the Eastern bird, but 

 his note is changed ; whereas the flicker has 

 changed the color under his wings from yel- 

 low to pink, but not his note. The robin is 

 no whit different from the front-lawn robin of 



