July, 1904 
THE CONDOR 
lOI 
at this point is about one and one-half miles wide, Bridge Creek joining Bear 
Creek here. The creek runs between perpendicular banks of soft dirt twelve or 
more feet high in places. For some one hundred yards along the stream extends 
a narrow copse of scrubby willows entangled with vines. The remainder of the 
valley floor is covered with the natural growth of sage, three to five feet high. 
Allen’s ranch gives some diversity to the collector by furnishing a half dozen fruit 
trees, a few poplars, an irrigating ditch with its few yards of willows and sedge, and 
a twenty acre field of alfalfa hay. 
Up the tributary ravines to the east, toward the fossil beds, a few scrubby 
junipers occur in the valley floor. Above the fossil cliff rise lava terraces to a 
height of several thousand feet, eight terraces being distinctly visible. On the 
more gentle slopes between terraces a sparse growth of junipers and some bunch 
grass is to be found. The entire region, however, that has not been fenced in, is 
over run and devastated by sheep. A pocket mouse would starve in such a place; 
lizards are extremely rare, and snakes almost entirely wanting. 
At the camp in Turtle Cove, the conditions were much the same. The alti- 
tude was slightly greater, there were no willows, but where we camped a small 
copse of birch and wild gooseberries shaded a small spring which kept the ground 
moist for a few yards down the ravine. Some distance to the north was a second 
ravine carrying a small stream bordered by willows for a short distance and a few 
scrub pines. A mile or more down the ravine and below the cliffs runs the John 
Day through the treeless sage of the canyon floor. 
At the third camp. Lower Basin, the conditions were somewhat improved. 
The river makes a great bend, broadening its bed and giving room for a number of 
giant cottonwoods, willow copses, a small marsh and hay fields. From the south 
wall descends a steep ravine, well wooded with birch and leading up to the pine 
timber in limited patches in steep notches in the lava wall. The limited extent of 
the pine growth probably explains the absence of Eutamias for which I searched in 
vain. Here for the first time on the trip, one could really feel that he was not in 
the desert. Dearly as one may love the open sage stretches of the desert of the 
west, a bit of pine timber with fir and aspen making a cool twilight in the hollows 
is a refreshing change at the close of a six weeks trip. Unfortunatelj' we could 
spend but four days at Lower Basin. 
Dendragapus obscurus. Dusky Grouse. A fine cock was taken at the Cove, 
June 24. Some half dozen were flushed from the junipers and grassy hillsides 
within several hundred yards, evidently one flock. The food was of green herbs, 
crop being stuffed with the young leaves and flower buds of a small composite 
growing on the hill. Mr. Davis later observed the courting dance of the species. 
A single male strutted with spread tail before a group of four or five females and 
at intervals of a minute or two emitted a single note much like the whool of the 
horned owl but much lower in pitch. I heard this note quite frequently in the 
region thereabout but took no more specimens. A nest of this bird, containing 
the shells of the season’s eggs, was found at the Cove, June 25. It was merely a 
shallow excavation under a low sage bush w’ith slight dry grass about. The shells 
were too scattered to allow an estimate of the number of eggs. Were there two 
breedings in the season or do the courting dances continue after the first brood is 
hatched? 
Pedioecetes p. columbianus. Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse. A single speci- 
men was seen flying overhead to the sage mesa at Caleb, June 13. The bird was 
identified by Mr. I)., an old hunter in this region. A tuft of the feathers was 
