s with great speed, and in his favourite habitat dodges and skulks
with rapidity, favoured by the resemblance of his colour to the natural
tints of the scrub. Though sometimes called the Cock of the Plains, he
never descends into the plains, being always found on the higher
mountain regions.

When the snow begins to melt, the sage hen builds in the bush a nest of
sticks and reeds artistically matted together, and lays from a dozen to
twenty eggs, rather larger than those of the domestic fowl, of a tawny
colour, irregularly marked with chocolate blotches on the larger end.
When a brood is strong enough to travel, the parents lead their young
into general society. They are excessively tame, or bold. Often they
may be seen strutting between the gnarled trunk and ashen masses of
foliage peculiar to the sage scrub, and paying no more attention to the
traveller than would a barnyard drove of turkeys; the cocks now and then
stopping to play the dandy before their more Quakerly little hens,
inflating the little yellow pouches of skin on either side of their
necks, till they globe out like the pouches of a pigeon.

WINTER SCENE AMONG THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

Descending the precipitous slopes of the Rocky Mountains on the west, we
enter on a vast plain no less than 2000 miles in length, though
comparatively narrow--the great basin of California and Oregon. Its
greatest width, from the Sierra Nevada to the Rocky Mountains, is nearly
600 miles, but is generally much less. The largest lake found on it is
4200 feet above the level of the sea, and is connected with the Salt
Lake of Utah. The mean elevation of the plain is about 6000 feet above
the sea. A mountain-chain runs across it, and through it flows the
large Colorado River, amidst gorges of the most picturesque
magnificence.

If the scenes we have described are stern and forbidding in summer, how
much more so are they in winter, when icy blasts blow through the
canons, and masses of snow cover the ground. From one of the outer
spurs on the east, let us take a glance over the region. Behind us
rises the chain of the Rocky Mountains, the whole intermediate country,
as well as the mountains themselves, except where the precipitous rocks
forbid it, being covered thickly with snow. Rugged peaks and ridges,
snow-clad and covered with pines, and deep gorges filled with broken
rocks, everywhere meet the eye. To the east, the mountains gradually
smooth away into high spurs a