There is at least one real thrasher in the desert, however, and usually in the same places that Oroscoptes affects, places such as I have mentioned, where cacti are mingled with the omnipresent creosote. This is Palmer’s thrasher, so called, a grayish-brown bird, with the characteristic thrasher make-up—long bill, long body, and long tail. He is one of the common birds about Tucson, both in the river valley and on the desert, and one of the few that are already in song. Even he, I suspect, is not really letting himself go as yet, but he is in tune daily; not so versatile a performer, seemingly, as our Eastern reddish-brown bird; with much less range of voice, and more given to repeating the same phrase half a dozen times in succession, so that his music has less the air of a strict improvisation; but a genuine thrasher, nevertheless, with a thrasher’s song. As the season progresses he will probably grow more ecstatic, though to hear him now, one would not expect him ever to become so mad a rhapsodist as the crazy bird that we admire, and sometimes smile at, in the Eastern country.
Whether the thrasher was seen on the day I am supposed to be describing, I do not now remember, but in all probability he was, for I never walk far in the desert without seeing or hearing him. If he does not sing, he salutes me with volleys of sharp, whip-snapping whistles in the style of the wood thrush and the robin. Like the wren, he prefers a perch at the top of a cactus. He prefers it, I say; but in truth it is almost Hobson’s choice with him, since the topmost spray of a creosote bush, the only other thing he could perch on, would hardly support his weight. There he stands, at all events, perfectly at his ease among the closely set spines, sharp as the sharpest needles, though how he manages the ticklish feat so adroitly is more than I can imagine.
I may have seen two or three desert sparrows, also; the black-throated sparrow, that is, with some slight variations, imperceptible in the bush, that make him, in the language of science, Amphispiza bilineata deserticola; and possibly, though this is somewhat less to be taken for granted, his long-tailed relative, the sage sparrow (Amphispiza belli nevadensis), may have teased me by his shyness. Both these birds are said to be famous enliveners of the desert,—though neither of them in their present silent state quite lives up to his reputation,—and will doubtless become prime favorites with me if I remain here long enough really to know them. Where should simple, hearty melodies find appreciation, if not in the desert?
I am slow in coming to the point of my story; and with reason. It is not pleasant to be mobbed; there is nothing to boast of in such an adventure; nothing to flatter one’s sense of personal importance; one is not apt to speak of it con amore, as we say. Some things are best slipped over in silence. So I have noticed that men who have served their country in prison will always contrive by one path or another to go round the name of that unpopular institution. But I have begun, and there is nothing for it but to finish.
Well, then, I had walked perhaps a mile and a half beyond the university buildings, which is the same as to say beyond the limits of the town, and found myself approaching a lonely ranch, when a flock of ravens, white-necked ravens, which abound hereabout—“the multitudinous raven,” I have caught myself saying[15]—rose from the scrub not far in advance, with the invariable hoarse chorus of quark, quark. I thought nothing of it, the sight being so much an every-day matter, till after a little I began to be aware that the whole flock seemed to be concentrating its attention upon my unsuspecting, inoffensive self. There must have been fifty of the big black birds. Round and round they went in circles, just above my head, moving forward as I moved, vociferating every one as he came near, “quark, quark.”
At first I was amused; it was something new and interesting. I recalled the time when I walked miles on miles over the North Carolina mountains in hope of seeing one raven, and here were half a hundred almost within hand’s reach; I chaffed them as they passed, calling them names and quarking back to them in derision. But before very long the novelty of the thing wore off; the persecution grew tiresome. Enough is as good as a feast; and I had had enough. “Quark, quark,” they yelled, all the while settling nearer,—or so I fancied,—till it seemed as if they actually meant violence. They were doing precisely what a flock of crows does to an owl or a hawk: they were mobbing me. “Quark, quark! Hit him, there! Hit him! Pick his eyes out!”
The commotion lasted for at least half a mile. Then the birds wearied of it, and went off about their business. All but one of them, I mean to say. He had no such notion. For ten minutes longer he stayed by. His persistency was devilish. It became almost unbearable. The single voice was more exasperating even than the chorus. If the famous albatross carried on after any such outrageous fashion, I have no stones to throw at the Ancient Mariner. He acted well within his rights. If I had had a crossbow, and had been as good a marksman as he was,—with “his glittering eye,”—there would have been one less raven in Arizona, and no questions asked. If a dead calm had succeeded, so much the better. “Quark, quark!” the black villain cried, wagging his impish head, and swooping low to spit the insult into my ear.
But all things have an end, as leaves have their time to fall, and even a raven’s perseverance will wear out at last. Perhaps the bird grew hungry. At all events he gave over the assault, stillness fell upon the desert, and an innocent foot-passenger went on his way in peace.
And this is how I was mobbed in Arizona. I could never have believed it.