Leet Usb ON eB Uli Bit TN 
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imperious they appear compared with our bob whites. Finally we reached 
our destination for the day, a beautiful level spot, enclosed on three sides by 
high walls of colorful stone, and opening on the west to views of distant 
ranges. There was a good deal of vegetation other than cacti — live oaks, 
cat’s-paw, mesquite, manzanita, and much I did not know. 
The crowd gathered to listen to a short talk on the history of the 
mountain by a Dr. Forbes, who had first scaled it. A teacher standing 
beside me whispered as a beautiful crested black bird with white wing 
patches darted about our heads, ‘“There’s the phainopepla.” I heard no 
more of the early local history. 
All the people I knew were among the dozen or so who started out on 
the long mountain climb. My friend loaned me her “Western Bird Guide,” 
but I had no glasses. Even so I never have had such a wonderful day with 
birds. No one else was interested in them and so I was free to spend my 
time where and how I pleased. The birds were many; nearly every tree 
seemed to have one or more. I could get close to them and often, standing 
behind some great rock, could study a bird until I got the essential char- 
acteristics, which I wrote down in my note book. Some I could identify 
with the help of my little bird guide but the names of others I learned from 
Dr. Vorhies as I described them to him on the way home. Perhaps my chief 
delight was with the bridled titmice. I sat under a tree and watched a 
flock of them on the ground only a few feet away. Many small dull green 
birds were with them, but I never could be sure of the identification of these. 
There were Harris’s woodpeckers, Palmer’s thrashers, crissal thrashers, 
Arizona jays, the spurred towhee, a verdin, and a green-tailed towhee. Dr. 
Vorhies asked me on the way home if I had seen a green-tailed towhee and 
I said, “Oh, no,” thinking a towhee should look like a towhee. Later I found 
that the bird I had been so very excited about and which in my ignorance 
I had tried to make into a rufous-crowned sparrow, was in reality the 
green-tailed towhee. 
As the afternoon passed many of the people started back to their homes. 
A few of us gathered about the camp-fire and watched the sunset through 
the opening in the mountains to the west. Once in a while some of the 
climbers would come down the trail. After a time the full moon came up 
over the mountains, beautiful as only an Arizona moon can be. Not until 
nine o’clock did my friends get down, Mrs. Vorhies barely able to stumble 
to the fire. The lunch was unpacked and plates of fried chicken, salads, 
sandwiches, cakes disappeared rapidly. 
The drive home through the desert I shall never forget. The stillness, 
the bright wash of moonlight, the weird landscape with the giant cactus, 
chollas, ocotillas, all seemed of a different world. Only the speeding auto- 
mobile and the presence of friends held me to actuality. I have never seen 
the place since. I think I should refuse to go again if I could, for the 
beauty and charm are so fixed in my memory, after these years perhaps not 
too realistically, that I could not bear to find any detail altered. I shall 
always think of it as a place apart, a veritable Shangri-la for birds. 
Springfield, Illinois. 
