Dr. E. Coues— Field Notes on Lophortyx gambeli. 47 
of pinon ( Pinus edulis) and cedar ( Juniperus p achy derma, and 
one or two other species), alternate with barren and desolate 
lava mal-pais*; hill-sides are covered with oak, mezquite {Alga- 
rohia glandulosa , the sweet “ beans” of which are valuable for 
food), and manzanita ( Arctostaphylus tomentosus) (literally “ little 
apple,” from the appearance of the berries); while the borders of 
running streams are fringed with cotton-woods {Populus moni- 
lifera) and willows and walnuts, and fenced in by almost im¬ 
penetrable walls of grape-vines, wild gooseberries, green-briar, 
rose-bushes, and, it seems, every variety of rank luxuriant under¬ 
growth. 
The region thus sketched in the most meagre outline is 
Arizona Territory, only just now beginning to be reclaimed from 
its pristine wildness, and appropriated by the white man for his 
own use, on the principle that “ might makes right ”—a country 
where man stands face to face with Nature herself, and must 
sturdily wrest from her his subsistence or perish. Civilization, 
in Arizona, is only, as yet, like the few desultory, hesitating 
drops that form the avant- couriers of the approaching shower. 
Men live scattered over the country in little knots, gathered 
together for mutual safety, and the intervening distances are 
full of danger and difficulty. Steam has, as yet, shortened no 
one of Arizona’s miles, nor lent its giant strength to the farmer 
or the mechanic; and so rudely simple is the mode of life, that 
Arizona seems, to one reared in refinement and luxury, hardly 
less strange in its society than in the want of it. But here is 
the chosen home of this beautiful Plumed Quail ; and here, too, 
must the naturalist make his home for awhile, if he would learn 
its habits. 
Walk abroad with me this bright October morning. We 
must not go far, or our scalps may decorate an Apache wigwam 
to-morrow. How different is everything from the scene pre¬ 
sented at the same season in New England ! Mountain, plain, 
and valley, forest, stream, and desert, are each cast in a widely 
diverse mould. The fauna and the flora, and the very rocks, 
are of a new, strange type; while the atmosphere itself seems 
* The term applied to a country whose surface is covered with more or 
less comminuted results of volcanic eruption. 
