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■ 4 # 
Volume XII November-December, 1910 Number £> 
THE YELLOW PINES OF MESA DEL AQUA DE LA YEGUA 
By FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY 
WITH ONE PHOTO 
N ONFl of the mesas we had seen so far between the Staked Plains and the 
Rocky Mountains had had any trees higher than the orchard-like junipers 
and nut pines; they had all belonged to the arid juniper zone, and all had 
the same set of birds, mammals and plants. We had been working in this juniper 
zone in New Mexico not only thru most of this field season but thru most of the 
previous season, with occasional dips down into the warmer zone of the mesquite 
country, so that our appetites for big trees and mountains had grown into a veri- 
table hunger. 
Now as we approacht Mesa del Agua de la Yegua, named apparently for some 
locally historic springs used for watering a band of mares, its western fringe of 
trees lookt surprizingly high to us, and the more we lookt, straining our eyes with 
eager hungry gaze, the higher they seemed, the longer stretcht the bare trunks 
below the bushy tops, and the more excited we got. 
“Yellow pines !” was at last pronounced, conclusively. What a thrill it gave 
us and what a flood of rich associations the name brought us ! Had we at last 
come to something higher than a juniper? Should we finally, to express our enthu- 
siasm in working terms, get above the low trees of the arid Sonoran zone into the 
Transition zone yellow pines with their old familiar birds and mammals ? Haunted 
by visions of New Mexico’s noble coniferous forests, it had seemed as if we would 
never get above the Upper Sonoran orchards. “Transition! Transition!” we repeated 
to ourselves, for the word was rich in memories of noble-boled, fragrant pine 
woods and sweet-voiced birds. It was too good to be true — I lookt at the trees 
fearful lest their imagined hight dwarf under my gaze. Still, in spite of my 
douts, we were working west toward the Rocky Mountains and this section of the 
plateau rose one thousand feet from the plains, so it might well reach into the 
yellow pines. The thought opened a beautiful vista — we were really approaching 
the mountains at last ! 
