drinking or bathing, though on night wanderings across the mesa they
flit up from under the horse's feet along stream borders. Their presence
near the spring in great numbers would indicate the presence of the
things they feed upon. All night the rustle and soft hooting keeps on in
the neighborhood of the spring, with seldom small shrieks of mortal
agony. It is clear day before they have all gotten back to their
particular hummocks, and if one follows cautiously, not to frighten them
into some near-by burrow, it is possible to trail them far up the slope.

The crested quail that troop in the Ceriso are the happiest frequenters
of the water trails. There is no furtiveness about their morning drink.
About the time the burrowers and all that feed upon them are addressing
themselves to sleep, great flocks pour down the trails with that
peculiar melting motion of moving quail, twittering, shoving, and
shouldering. They splatter into the shallows, drink daintily, shake out
small showers over their perfect coats, and melt away again into the
scrub, preening and pranking, with soft contented noises.

After the quail, sparrows and ground-inhabiting birds bathe with the
utmost frankness and a great deal of splutter; and here in the heart of
noon hawks resort, sitting panting, with wings aslant, and a truce to
all hostilities because of the heat. One summer there came a road-runner
up from the lower valley, peeking and prying, and he had never any
patience with the water baths of the sparrows. His own ablutions were
performed in the clean, hopeful dust of the chaparral; and whenever he
happened on their morning splatterings, he would depress his glossy
crest, slant his shining tail to the level of his body, until he looked
most like some bright venomous snake, daunting them with shrill abuse
and feint of battle. Then suddenly he would go tilting and balancing
down the gully in fine disdain, only to return in a day or two to make