We are on the sandy waste, and right well does it merit its name desert, for a more dismal barren wilderness cannot be imagined; its surface is all pumice and cinders, with nothing growing on it but a few sage-bushes and dwarfed junipers. Every step the animals make is fetlock-deep; and dust, that nearly chokes and blinds us, comes from every direction. On, and on, and on we go, but no change, no hope of water.
Just before dark—when I begin to think I have been guilty of an awful mistake, and brought needless misery on both men and animals—I push ahead of the train, in hope of finding water, for the guide is utterly lost. Suddenly I descry the tracks of the prong-buck in the sand; hope revives, water must be near at hand! Carefully I follow on their tracks, that lead down a sloping bank of scoria, and slags of lava, through a narrow gorge, with rocks on either side that look as if they had been burnt in a limekiln—to come out into a narrow valley, where the sight of trees, grass, and water makes my heart leap with delight.
Back I spur to meet the lagging train, toiling on, parched with thirst, blinded with dust; hungry, weary, and exhausted. I guide them to the valley, and at the sight of water, men and mules seem to gain new life, rush wildly towards it, plunge in, and drink as only the thirst-famished can. Unsaddle and let the mules feed for two hours, then light five fires, and keep them closely herded, although I have but very little dread of farther pursuit. Supped on grilled antelope, and got a few hours’ sleep.
May 23rd.—All safe; no sign of being followed. Off at dawn; fifteen miles more of this horrid waste, and we begin ascending a ridge of mountains, which I find is the watershed of the streams flowing into the Columbia on one side and into the Klamath river on the other; strike the headwaters of the Des Chutes or Fall river, and camp in a fine grassy prairie belted with pine—the Pinus ponderosa. Here I determine to remain two days, to allow resting-time for men and animals.
May 25th.—All wonderfully recruited; rest and good feeding soon repair a healthy body, be it man’s or quadruped’s. I stroll off with my gun, and observe that numbers of the pine-trees are completely studded with acorns, just as nails with large heads were driven into doors in olden days. I had seen a piece of the bark filled with acorns in San Francisco, and was there informed it was the work of a woodpecker, but, to tell the truth, thought I was being hoaxed; but here I am in the midst of dozens of trees, with acorns sticking out all over their trunks; it is no hoax, for I saw the birds that did it, and shot two of them. This singular acorn-storer is the Californian woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), evidently of very social habits. They assemble in small flocks, climbing rapidly along the rough bark of the pitch-pine, rapping here and there, with their wedgelike beaks, to scare some drowsy insect; inducing it to rush out, to be nipped, or speared, with the barbed tongue, ere half-awake; others, sitting on the topmost branches of the oaks and pines, continually darted off after some fugitive moth or other winged insect, capturing it much in the fashion of the flycatchers. The harsh and discordant voice is made up for in beauty of plumage. A tuft of scarlet feathers crowns the head, and contrasts brilliantly with the glossy bottle-green of the back and neck; a white patch on the forehead joins, by a narrow isthmus of white, with a necklet of golden-yellow; the throat is dark-green, and the underparts of a pure white.
As I look over these stores of acorns, I am at a loss to think for what purpose the birds place them in the holes. In Cassin’s ‘Birds of America’ he quotes from Dr. Heerman and Mr. Kelly’s ‘Excursions in California.’ Both writers positively state that these birds stow away acorns for winter provisions, and the latter that he has seen them doing it: ‘I have frequently paused from my chopping to watch them with the acorns in their bills, and have admired the adroitness with which they tried it at different holes, until they found one of its exact calibre.’
I have seen the acorns in the holes, and the birds that are said to put them there, and have no right to doubt the statements of other observers; but it seems strange to me, that I cannot find a single acorn exhibiting any evidence of being eaten during the winter. These were stored on the previous fall; winter has passed away, and yet not a seed has been eaten, as far as I can see. I opened the stomachs of the two birds I shot, but not a trace of vegetable matter was in either of them. Subsequently I killed and examined the stomachs of a great many specimens, but never detected anything save insect remains.
Does this woodpecker ever eat acorns? I think not. More than this, when the insects die, or go to sleep during the cold, snowy, biting winter months, the woodpeckers, like all other sensible birds, go southwards, and have no need to store up a winter supply, as do quasi-hibernating mammals. Then it occurred to me, that if they really do take the trouble to bore holes, a work of great time and labour, and into every hole carefully drive a sound acorn that they never make any use of, it is simply idle industry. As a rule, birds are not such thriftless creatures. I had no opportunity of watching the birds in acorn-time—hence this storing is still to me a mystery that needs further explanation.
I came suddenly on a flock of yellow-headed blackbirds (Xanthocephalus icterocephalus), sitting on a clump of bushes skirting a small pool. As they sit amidst the bright-green foliage, they remind me of blossoms; the intense black of the body-plumage shows out so conspicuously against the orangelike yellow of the head, that the colours seem too defined for a bird’s livery, and more like the freaks of colouring Nature indulges in when tinting orchideous flowers. I imagine this to be their utmost range northwards, for I never saw them after, although they are frequent visitors to Texas, Illinois, and Mexico. Strike the trail of a grizzly, follow it for some distance, but fail in coming up with my large-clawed friend.
May 26th.—I find I shall have to ferry the Des Chutes river. Send on four of my men ahead, to collect timber for a raft. Find, on arriving at the river-bank, that a heap of dry timber has been collected. With axes and an auger—and here let me advise all who travel with packhorses or mules never to go without a three-inch auger—we soon build a raft 12 feet long by 6½ feet wide; the timber is fastened together with wooden trenails.