72 
THE CONDOR 
| Vol. yn 
Another large alfalfa field on the other side of town and beyond the deep 
gorge through which the river ran, was a most promising looking spot, containing 
as it did, an attractive laguna. But we were very positively informed that “no 
shooting allowed” was to be carried out to the letter of the signs displayed, and 
while the calaboose in the town was not a formidable looking place, we concluded 
it safest to give up our inclinations in that direction. 
This part of the Mojave Desert is about 2700 feet above the sea, and, unlike 
the California portion of the Colorado Desert, where we had found the weather so 
moderate the previous winter, has a variable and somewhat wintry climate. 
Though rain in any quantity but seldom falls, the wind makes itself felt with a 
fierce energy that is truly exasperating. During our stay from December 21, 1904, 
to January 2, 1905, inclusive, we had two days with slight rain, many with heavy 
wind, some of them cloudy and exceedingly chilly, several nights of severe frost 
when water froze in the kitchen of our cottage, and only two days when warm 
sunshine and clear air gave us a taste of the sort of weather we would have most 
desired for comfort and collecting. Some days we would have to keep almost on 
the run, even in bright sunshine until as late as ten o’clock in the morning to keep 
warm, and then with hands too cold to handle guns or specimens properly.. 
Doubtless our light clothing, and the fact that we had been long accustomed to the 
more equable California coast climate, rendered us particularly sensitive to this 
cold, which in the eastern states might have been deemed moderate for the season. 
Some days we would find almost nothing in the bird line, though possibly 
picking up something unexpected on the way back to headquarters, while on 
others we would make a good haul. Whether this was due only to the weather, 
which did not always seem to be the case — as when a fine day would be barren of 
results — or whether the birds were moving up and down the river, if not actually 
migrating, we could not determine. But certainly our daily “horizons” were as- 
tonishingly uneven, and in such a way that the weather could hardly be called to 
account for the difference. 
We had expected to find cactus wrens, sage thrashers, and the different desert 
sparrows at least fairly abundant in this locality, with the Texas woodpecker rela- 
tively numerous, to say nothing of visions of Leconte thrashers; but in all this we 
were more or less disappointed. Mesquites and the different forms of cactus were 
almost entirely wanting, the tree yuccas were widely scattered, while the sage and 
creosote bushes were lamentably thin. In consequence most of our work in the 
desert proper brought scant returns, rock wrens, a very few cactus wrens, some 
sage, and intermediate sparrows being almost the only inhabitants, though we 
were afforded an occasional tantalizing glimpse of a Leconte thrasher. 
The cottonwoods along the river, on the other hand, abounded in heavy 
growths of mistletoe, the berries of which seemed extremely attractive to the ma- 
jority of the visiting birds. Of these the western bluebird was most in evidence, 
sometimes widely dispersed in small groups feeding in the mistletoe clumps, and at 
other times collected in large flocks among the tops of the trees. The mountain 
bluebird was occasionally met with out in the open, but never in the woods. Some 
phainopeplas and a few Townsend soletaires seemed highly appreciative of the 
flavor of the mistletoe berries, while at intervals a flock of cedar-birds would be 
encountered eagerly devouring the transparent little fruit. The capture of a Bo- 
hemian waxwing by Finger led us to hope that we would find more of these rare 
birds, but the hope was not verified and the specimen remained unique. Rocky 
Mountain creepers were now and then discovered busily engaged in their detective 
