[1] 1900.
[2] It may have been some species of _Pellia_, to judge by the plate in
_Gray’s Manual_.
[3] And if New Hampshire people will call the mountain “Moose Hillock,”
as, alas, they will, then we have here another proof of the degeneracy
which follows the white man’s addiction to the punning habit.
[4] And so it was; for though I _felt_ sure, I wanted to _be_ sure, and
submitted it to an expert.
[5] One was living in the greenhouse connected with the big hotel.
The gardener told me that it had come in of itself, and persisted in
staying. He had tried in vain to get rid of it. Tossed out of doors, it
would at once return and make itself at home.
[6] And after all this talk about the plant I must in candor add that
it turned out to be by no means rare along the bay shore. I think I am
not wrong in remembering to have heard it called the calabash tree.
[7] One of the most striking peculiarities of Southern speech among the
illiterate classes (I have observed it in other states besides Florida)
is the almost total absence of the word “saw.”
[8] We often fed the birds afterward, and one or two, at least, were
never shy about coming into our laps.
[9] _Vachellia Farnesiana_, sparingly naturalized in Florida, where it
goes by the name of Opopanax.
[10] Since this letter was first printed I have been warned more than
once that walking upon railroad tracks, in the Southwestern country,
at least, is an unsafe proceeding, for a man alone and unarmed; and I
think it right to pass along the caution.
[11] I could hardly believe it anything but an accidental omission
when I noticed the total absence of jays, crows, and ravens from Mr.
Attwater’s list of the birds of San Antonio and vicinity. See _The
Auk_, vol. ix, p. 229.
[12] True as a general statement; but once, at Tucson, I saw a bird
standing on the top of a telegraph pole facing a pretty stiff breeze,
which blew the feathers of the throat apart till they showed a
snow-white spot as large as a silver dollar.
[13] Botanically, if I am correctly informed, the plant is _Fouquiera
splendens_, otherwise known as candlewood, Jacob’s staff, and
coach-whip. Like the giant cactus it seems to be restricted to the
foothills.
[14] Alas, it never does.
[15] There is another raven in Arizona, rarer and larger,--a _real_
raven, so to speak,--but I saw it only a few times, always high in air,
as if it were passing from one mountain range to another.
[16] The trick was seen to fuller advantage on subsequent occasions,
and I came to the settled conclusion that the birds turned but halfway
over; that is to say, they lay on their backs for an instant, and then,
as by the recoil of a spring, recovered themselves. How they acquired
the trick, and for what purpose they practice it, are questions beyond
my answering. Since my return home, indeed, I have discovered that
Gilbert White, who noted so many things, noted this same habit on the
part of the European raven. According to him, the birds “lose the
centre of gravity” while “scratching themselves with one foot.” How he
knows this he does not inform us, and I must confess myself unconvinced.
[17] They are not to be found on the desert, I afterward learned, but
along the watercourses. There I often saw them.
[18] I visited more than one of them afterward.
[19] And so they were, on the testimony of the Washington ornithologist
above quoted, who knows both bird and song.
[20] It should be said, nevertheless, that straggling flocks of Western
bluebirds--lovely creatures--were met with on the desert on rare
occasions, and once, at Old Camp Lowell, three robins--Westerners, no
doubt--passed over my head, flying toward the mountains, in which they
are said to winter.
The Riverside Press
_Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._