It was very dry, even as
compared with the northern plains. The bed of the Frio was filled with
coarse gravel, and for the most part dry as a bone on the surface, the
water seeping through underneath, and only appearing in occasional
deep holes. These deep holes or ponds never fail, even after a year's
drought; they were filled with fish. One lay quite near the ranch house,
under a bold rocky bluff; at its edge grew giant cypress trees. In
the hollows and by the watercourses were occasional groves of pecans,
live-oaks, and elms. Strange birds hopped among the bushes; the
chaparral cock--a big, handsome ground-cuckoo of remarkable habits, much
given to preying on small snakes and lizards--ran over the ground with
extraordinary rapidity. Beautiful swallow-tailed king-birds with rosy
plumage perched on the tops of the small trees, and soared and flitted
in graceful curves above them. Blackbirds of many kinds scuttled
in flocks about the corrals and outbuildings around the ranches.
Mocking-birds abounded, and were very noisy, singing almost all the
daytime, but with their usual irritating inequality of performance,
wonderfully musical and powerful snatches of song being interspersed
with imitations of other bird notes and disagreeable squalling.
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