264 
Dr. E. Coues .—From Arizona to the Pacific. 
numerous are the nests at some points, that one spot has re¬ 
ceived and still bears the name of “ Swallow-nest Bendand 
not unfrequently in the midst of the colony of Swallows is 
placed the rude nest of Ardea herodias , flat upon some project¬ 
ing ledge of rock. 
Leaving Fort Mojave, which I did on the 30th of October, 
before us to the westward lies the Colorado desert—a barren 
waste of sand and rock which stretches evervwhere between the 
river and the fertile and habitable portions of Southern Cali¬ 
fornia. It would be difficult to imagine a region more uninviting 
or more devoid of varied forms of animal life. It would be a pro¬ 
fitless tract for an ornithologist expecting to find variety, though 
still the few species found are interesting. For whole days hardly 
more than the Ravens would relieve the monotony of wearisome 
travel. I cannot forbear to quote from my friend Dr. Newberry, 
who must have written under the inspiration of the surrounding 
desolation. “ Even on the most sterile and inhospitable portions 
of the central desert, where heaven withholds her genial showers 
and earth refuses every tribute to beauty or comfort; where 
stern and unrelenting sterility reigns supreme and barren sands 
and rough and ragged rocks, bleached and burnt in the eternal 
blaze of a cloudless sun, sear the eyeball; here, perched on 
some blasted pine, the presiding genius of the surrounding de¬ 
solation, the Raven always sat, and as we defiled past, over the 
trackless waste, gave us the malediction of his discordant croak.” 
Except the ubiquitous and omnipresent Ravens and an occa¬ 
sional Anthus ludovicianus, hardly a bird was seen* for some 
days after leaving the Colorado, until, crossing the Providence 
Mountains, we encamped at Soda Lake, the “ Sink” of the 
Mojave river, which, rising in the San Bernadino Mountains 
of California and flowing in an easterly direction towards the 
Colorado, is stopped by the Providence Mountains, and quietly 
sinks in the sand of the desert. Its bed is usually nearly or 
quite dry, except in spots, for many miles from its sink, and 
* Dr. Cooper tells me that on this portion of the route he met with 
Poospiza bilineata , P. belli , and Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus. The 
latter, he says, is emphatically and almost exclusively a Cactus-Wren, 
always found among, and breeding in, plants of this family. 
