‘Why, stranger, I guess you ain’t a-travelled this way much, or you’d be pretty tall sure that them darned blackshirts out on the prairie would eat a hoss and chase the rider. But for that bit of a tin-fixin’ thar, they’d mighty soon make tracks for my field, and just leave her clean as an axe-blade. These critters come about once in four years, and a mighty tall time they have when they do come!’ It was a most effectual and capital contrivance to keep them out, for if they came underneath the tin they jumped up against it, and it was too wide to leap over. These field-crickets (_Acheta nigra_) are black, and very much larger than the ordinary house-cricket. They eat seeds, grass, fruit, and, when they can get nothing else, they devour each other. I frequently got off my horse to see what a large mob of crickets were about. They had dragged down, perhaps, two or three others, and were one and all deliberately tearing them to pieces. If they meet head to head, they rush at each other and butt like rams, but, backing against each other, they lash out their hind-legs and kick like horses. What becomes of them when they die I cannot imagine; the entire atmosphere for miles must become pestilential. I suppose, from their coming in such vast numbers every fourth year, that the larvæ must take that time ere they assume the perfect shape. _May 16th._—The Californian quail, which I found most plentiful along the course of the Sacramento, ceases at the edge of this great sandy desert; it appears to be the limit to its northern range. I note a singular instance, how curiously and readily birds alter their usual habits under difficulties, in the nesting of Bullock’s Oriole. A solitary oak stood by the little patch of water, a spring that oozed, rather than bubbled, through the sandy soil where my camp stood; it was the only water within many miles, and the only tree too; every available branch and spray had one of the woven nests of this brilliant bird hanging from it. I have never seen them colonise elsewhere. The nests are usually some distance from each other, and concealed amidst thick foliage. CHAPTER XI. CROSSING THE KLAMATH RIVER—HOW TO SWIM MULES—SIS-KY-OUE INDIANS—EMIGRANT FORD—TROUT BALING—A BEAVER TOWN—BREEDING-GROUNDS OF THE PELICANS AND VARIOUS WATER-BIRDS—PURSUED BY KLAMATH INDIANS—INTERVIEW WITH CHIEF—THE DESERT PRONG HORNED ANTELOPES—ACORNS AND WOODPECKERS—YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRDS—SNAKE SCOUT—ARRIVAL AT CAMP OF COMMISSION—END OF JOURNAL.