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SepL, 1916 183 MEETING SPRING HALF WAY By FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY II. (Continued from page 155) [?IVE DOWN across the southernmost prairies of Texas in April if you would meet the last of the migrating hordes of birds and see one of Nature's most remarkable exhibits of 'social plants'. Daisies that whiten occasional meadows in the east and the so-called poppies that gild strips of uncultivated land in California partially explain the term, but on the prairies most of the species are social plants and acres or miles of one species are followed by acres or miles of another species. Blue-bonnets dominated all the other flowers at Austin and were among the dominant flowers at Corpus Christi. Beyond them there was one flower bed about a mile wide and three miles long, solid Coreopsis, so brilliantly yellow it fairly mirrored the sun. That many of the social plants like Coreopsis, verbena, spiderwort, and phlox are the familiar garden flowers of the east makes their riotous growth seem peculiarly remarkable. Fresh from an eastern garden, even rods of verbena are enlarging to the mind! The richest flora and fauna between Corpus Christi and Brownsville was found on the bands of clay soil adjoining the two towns and separated by a wide stretch of sandy soil. The most conspicuous flowers of the clay were yellow tar weed, yellow and pink primrose, purple verbena, magenta Callir- rhoe, and yellow Coreopsis. Cactus, thorny chaparral, and mesquite also oc- curred on the clay soil, while on the sandy tracts here and there among the sand dunes stood live oak groves. We began our three hundred and sixty mile drive from Corpus Christi to the Mexican boundary and return, on April 24, 1900, and that day made twenty-two miles to Petranilla Creek, enjoying the alternation of green mesquite orchards and gay flower prairie. One section of prairie had miles of pink evening primroses stretching as far as the eye could see. In the mesquite orchards the beautiful trees suggested the pepper trees of California with their finely cut waving foliage branched to the ground, and toward sunset the slanting light made the lacy foliage an intense yellow green. Though not yet decorated with their delicate tasselated yellow blooms, two trees that we saw bore brilliant blossoms--scarlet-breasted Vermilion Flycatchers! One of these was in a mesquite on the Oso, how musically the Spanish names run, the other in a tree at Mott Aura, Mort being the local name for a small grove on the open prairie (this one having a mixture of huisache, hackberry, and mesquite), Aura commemorating the Turkey Vultures which formerly frequented the grove. Having the unusual addition of a pond, Mort Aura had attracted not only the scarlet Pyrocephalus, green Vireos, and black Jackdaws, but also a Solitary Sandpiper and a number of Yellow-legs. On the prairie the characteristic birds seen during our journey were Mea- dowlarks, Mourning Doves, Dickcissels, Sennerr Thrashers, Nighthawks and Upland Plover. Knowing Dickcissels previously only as individual songsters well met on their breeding grounds in the wheat fields of the north, it was a pleasant surprise to meet the spring flocks on their way north. We began meet- ing them on our first day out. Long rows, rows sometimes reaching hundreds, were lined up on the fences like Swallows on telegraph wires. Their flat heads