12 
THE CONDOR 
Vop. XI 
line, and twelve miles east of the Utah line. The Dolores cuts across the west end 
of the county in a northerly course, and there are a few other flowing streams 
tributary to each of the larger ones, and numerous dry channels and gulches which 
occasionally have water. 
On this mesa are large tracts of cedar or juniper ( Sabina utahensis), and 
pifion woods, with equally great or greater open spaces covered with sage'! brush 
{Artemisia) . The canons of the rivers have cottonwoods, wild cherries, and other 
deciduous trees and shrubs, while on their slopes are often scrub oaks. At the 
lower elevations, along the Dolores River, there is much greasewood ( Sarcobatus ) 
and rabbit brush ( Chrysothamnus sp.), the latter often taller than a man, and with 
large woody stems. The rocks exposed in the canons of the San Miguel and its 
tributaries are a light grayish sandstone, while along the Dolores, and in both the 
East and West Paradox Valleys, the country rock is a red sandstone. The soil 
over almost the whole district is of a reddish color, which has apparently had some 
effect on the colors of two 
or three species of mam- 
mals. 
A considerable portion of 
the mesa land is under cul- 
tivation, the necessary 
water being supplied by 
ditches brought from the 
mountains. Aside from 
these ditches, there is prac- 
tically no water on the mesa, 
and the fauna and flora are 
of the desert types. Bird 
life is thus rather lacking 
in variety here. In the 
stream valleys, where there 
are deciduous trees and 
shrubbery, there is of 
course a greater variety, 
but unfortunately this por- 
MAP OF PORTION OF WESTERN COLORADO; THE SHADED W ^ * eaSt Worked. 
area is the region covered by this paper ^ here are some reseivoirs, 
Copied by permission from a map copyrighted by Clason Map Co., Denver mostly Small, for water 
storage, and these attract 
water birds during the migrations, and the occurrences noted of these birds were 
practically all about these reservoirs. 
In 1906 I spent the last two weeks of April at Coventry. Mr. M. F. Gilman 
publisht a few of the notes I took then in “Some Birds of Southwest Colorado’’, 
in The Condor, Vol. IX, No. 5; but nothing has been omitted here because of 
that, for it is desirable that these notes be complete in themselves. In 1908 I spent 
the first and last weeks of April at Coventry, and the intervening time at Bedrock, 
40 miles west on the Dolores River, where the East and West Paradox Valleys join 
it, at an elevation of 5150 feet: no doubt a good place for a bird man in May and 
June, but I was after mice and sic/i, and did not stay for the birds. 
It should be stated that Mr. Smith has done but little bird collecting, and his 
notes are largely from ocular observations, but we have gone thru the list carefully 
and cut out everything about which there is the least doubt. 
