366 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919'. 
liable fortress, flings down a note of taunting defiance; the golden 
eagle, holding himself sternly aloof from his neighbors, wheels about 
his eyrie on the crag or, leaving it behind, soars majestically out 
over the valleys; and the Texas nighthawk, in its pursuit of insect 
prey, silently at dusk haunts the vicinity of the springs and lakes 
and streams. 
Few places there are in this or any other country where desert 
conditions are more intensified than where, walled in by ranges of 
barren, mountains and partly below the level of the sea, lies the 
famous Death Valley of California. Yet even here bird life is not 
wanting. The ubiquitous killdeer frequents each pool and stream 
and little marsh, and by its petulant cries, at times continued far 
into the night, makes itself known. The mourning dove, common in 
all the great West, is here so regular a visitor to the springs that 
its presence betokens almost with certainty the nearness of water. 
Here, too, that strangest of all strange birds of the desert, the road- 
runner, though shy and retiring, betrays itself now by tell-tale foot- 
prints in the sand, now by occasional distant fugitive appearances 
as it runs among the bushes or, with head and tail erect, pauses mo- 
mentarily to survey its surroundings. The rough-winged swallow 
is found about the springs; the least vireo in some of the lower 
mountain canyons; once in a while a kingfisher wanders over 
into the valley; the powerful-winged white-throated swift comes 
down from its inaccessible home in the cliffs to hunt in the low 
country; vultures appear at times in search of their grewsome re- 
past ; and the hoarse croak of that sombre-hued bird of ill omen, the 
raven, is a familiar and peculiarly suggestive sound in this valley 
of solitude and death. 
