Page:A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf.djvu/262

Rh gilias, eschscholtzias, white and yellow violets, blue and yellow lilies, dodecatheons, and eriogonums set in a half-floating maze of purple grasses. There is but one vine in the Hollow—the Megarrhiza [Echinocystis T. & D.] or &quot;Big Root.&quot; The only bush within a mile of it, about four feet in height, forms so remarkable an object upon the universal smoothness that my dog barks furiously around it, at a cautious distance, as if it were a bear. Some of the hills have rock ribs that are brightly colored with red and yellow lichens, and in moist nooks there are luxuriant mosses—Bartramia, Dicranum, Funaria, and several Hypnums. In cool, sunless coves the mosses are companioned with ferns—a Cystopteris and the little gold-dusted rock fern, Gymnogramma triangularis.

The Hollow is not rich in birds. The meadowlark homes there, and the little burrowing owl, the killdeer, and a species of sparrow. Occasionally a few ducks pay a visit to its waters, and a few tall herons—the blue and the white—may at times be seen stalking along the