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at "La Cuadrilla" the Dendrortyx was very common & its curious love notes were heard all about on the adjacent hillside from the dense brush mornings & evenings. In evenings a pair of owls (size of shorteared owl) made a practice of coming into a pair of huge fig trees overshadowing the corral & uttering a curious frog-like note one was secured.

point of the ridge where the trail was on a very narrow tongue of land we met a long train of mules loaded with salt for the reduction works at San Sebastian. There was hardly room for them to pass without either party pushing the other into the abyss below. After the mules had passed we descended several hundred feet on the steep trail which went down to the bottom of the cañon in a series of steep zig-zags through a [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] cuts made in the slope. Ferus & a variety of herbs & bushes overhung this part of the trail & made beautiful little vistas. Below the small river foaming over its rocky bed between the high cañon walls on which is the low growth of and tropical trees & bushes now nearly devoid of leaves. For some hours we now went on down the cañon passing many bits of heavy tree growth where the cañon widened out enough to give the trees a foothold. Along the tops of the high bordering ridges were scattered scrubby pines forming an irregular dark fringe. Several [[grack?]] trains were passed & two little groups of thatched jacales. Finally the cañon walls opened out & the vegetation suddenly became lower & more scrubby showing that we were at the border of the foothills next the coast plain. In a short time we crossed the river & on the farther bank found the village