44 
THE CONDOR 
voi. xin 
bed filled with rich deciduous trees and shrubs in which live many birds and mam- 
mals unknown to the desert above. This had been the case at one of our earlier 
camps where cactuses so filled the spaces between junipers that it was hard to 
escape them, branches of Opuntia arborcscens pricking you admonishingly on the 
shoulder as you passed, low white-spined prickly pear sticking needles in your 
boots, engelmanni lending spines for your leggins, "and Mamnialarias adding 
many a stinging touch; while cactus flowers in red, yellow, and magenta offered 
their glowing tribute along the way. In the canyon that cut through this cactus 
desert were w’illows, fresh green cottonwoods, trees draped in woodbine and grape- 
vine — the grapevine adding a fragrant breath — a patch of cat-tails, clusters of bril- 
liant yellow flowers, delicate white cliff roses and — a pair of eastern Phoebes nesting 
in a niche over one of the numerous water pools! 
At Mesa Pajarito at the time of our visit — June 1903 — Ash-throated Fly- 
catchers, Woodhou.se Jays, Vireos, and Bush-tits, characteristic birds of the juniper 
country or Upper Sonoran zone, were abundant; while a Roadrunner, being kept 
in countenance by some mesquite of the Rower Sonoran zone was seen near the top 
of the cliff. A young family of the delightful Desert Sparrows had just left their 
nest in a juniper and were being fed by their handsome black-throated parents near 
by, while an irrepressible brood of Rock Wrens after several alarming encounters 
with the strangers were led out of sight down a cut bank by their sagacious 
mother. Blue Crows, the young with only half-grown tails, passing in blue waves 
through camp were enough to give life and color to the grayest day. Confiding 
Mourning Doves walked about near the tents, the male showing his beautiful plum- 
like bloom to great advantage when he puffed out his throat in cooing to his demure 
brown mate. 
A variety of other birds swelled the list, but most in evidence in the amphi- 
theater were the Mockingbirds. There must have been half a dozen pairs, one of 
which was feeding young in a nest in a cactus close to camp, a nest well protected 
by its own thorny sticks as well as its thorny supporting branches. A Mocker who 
sang vociferously until silenced by the third day of rain, was the best mimic I ever 
heard — he kept me running out of the tent to see familiar birds who were not 
there. At dark when stentorian Mockingbirds stopped singing, doubtless because 
they couldn’t keep awake any longer, the Poorwills with quiet voices well suited 
to the evening stillness began to call from the shadows, poor-u'il' -I ozl\ poor-wil'- 
lozv\ and when the darkness of night had silenced them, their places were taken by 
the Great Horned Owls which in deep-voiced, sonorous tones hooted .solemnly to 
each other from the caverns of the rocky wall. The next day to our surprise we 
heard the Poor-will, the bird of dusk and dawn, calling at intervals while the sun 
was shining; but it was probably waked at these unseemly hours by the unaccus- 
tomed jangle of the horse bell, for after that it was heard only at its own proper 
concert hours. 
The four hundred foot cliffs of the Llano attracted Cliff Swallows, Sparrow 
Haw'ks, Ravens, Eagles, Horned Owls, and Buzzards. Sparrow Hawks were seen 
from camp feeding young out of the nest, and in climbing the cliff Mr. Bailey 
found an old three-story eagle’s nest, and also a raven’s ne.st from which the young 
had recently flown. The eagle’s nest, on a ledge of the 'sandstone cliff facing camp, 
was a massive structure three or four feet high, at least three nests being built one 
above the other. The ground beneath it told an interesting story. Numerous 
ejected pellets of rabbit fur, and a variety of small bones strewed the earth. The 
bones — jaws, skulls, and thigh bones — after critical examination were pronounced 
those of prairie dog, gopher, jack rabbit and cottontail — rabbit predominating. 
