1889-] Silver Lake of Oregon. 977 
to shoot. I failed completely to hit one, after many trials, and 
my identification was based on specimens sent me afterwards by 
Mr. Duncan. 
After remaining for a few days at Mr. Duncan's, there arrived a 
guest to whom I became under great obligations. This was Mr. 
Charles Whittaker, the son of Governor Whittaker, of Oregon. 
Learning that I wished to visit and explore the remarkable 
deposit of fossil bones known as Fossil Lake, he placed his con- 
veyance, drawn by two fine horses, and his time, at my disposal. 
Fossil Lake lies about forty miles to the eastward of Silver Lake, 
in the desert, and the trail through the sage-brush was passable 
for a wagon. Water could be had by digging, but food for the 
horses must be carried. 
We left the lake by the low pass on the northeast, and, passing 
by the flat that held Thome's Lake when it existed, drove to 
Christmas Lake, our first stopping-place. This is a small body 
of water of but few square miles in extent, and is excessively 
alkaline. Its waters have no appreciable effect on the arid shores, 
which were dry and dotted with the sage-brush almost to its edge. 
I found abundance of larvae of dipterous insects, and crustaceans, 
as Cyclops, in the water ; but a rancher who lived near by, told 
me that it contained no fishes, a statement which I could readily 
believe. Avosets (Recurvi rostra) and stilts (Himantopus), waded 
in the shallows, feeding, I suppose, on the invertebrate life which 
I observed. From the rancher I obtained some beautiful 
obsidian arrow-heads and scrapers which he had found at Fossil 
Lake. 
By early the next evening we had reached the " bone yard." 
We dug two holes in a low place, one for ourselves and one for 
the horses, getting clear water, somewhat alkaline to the taste, at 
a depth of about eighteen inches. We soon had a brisk fire 
of dry sage-brush ; and bacon and mutton, potatoes and canned 
tomatoes, were soon in condition to satisfy the appetite which 
only the camper in the dry regions of the West experiences. We 
rolled up in our blankets, and my last thoughts before entering 
dreamland were of what I should find on the morrow. 
