wild roots used by the Indians. One comestible of the early Oregon housewife was camas pie, a delicacy dwelt on reminiscently by more than one longbeard at pioneer gatherings. Miners' lettuce took the place of the cultivated vegetable, and so often did our forbears substitute the dried leaves of the yerba buena for "store tea" that the plant has become known by the common name of Oregon tea.
Not only did the pioneer draw heavily upon the floral resources of the State for food and shelter but his modern descendant continues to utilize these products extensively. Wild berries are gathered by the ton, chit tarn bark, digitalis or foxglove, and other medicinal plants are collected for the market, and flowers and shrubs are brought in from forest and crag for rock garden, park, or lawn.
The bird and animal life of Oregon is fully as varied as the plant life. Eliot lists over three hundred species: song birds, game birds, and birds of prey; mountain dwellers, valley dwellers, and dwellers by the sea. Perhaps a third of them are permanent residents, a third part-time residents, and a third transient visitors to the region. Great contrasts are found, for the dry eastern areas are incongruously intermingled with large marshlands and lakes. One may observe the aquatic antics of grebes, cormorants, pelicans (see KLAMATH FALLS), herons and coots, and almost simultaneously, on the high arid lands round about, catch glimpses of the great sage grouse, the sage thrasher, and the desert sparrow.
Best loved by Oregonians is the state bird, the western meadow lark, heard from fence or tree at almost any season of the year. Another favorite is the robin, abundant in field and garden, foraging in winter orchards, lighting the chill gray months with his song. The blackbird lingers through the year, his notes ringing in gay orchestration. Numerous also among the permanent residents are the willow goldfinches, the Oregon towhee, the chickadee, sparrow, and bluebirds.
Less frequently are seen the great blue heron, the killdeer, and the mountain quail; hawks and owls and the Oregon jay; the varied thrush or Alaska robin; the water ouzel of perfect song. Yearlong one may hear the drum of flicker or woodpecker, the hoarse caw of the crow, the screech owl's hoot. Along the seashore curve on swift wings, gulls, fulmers, petrels, and the myriad other dwellers of cliff and marsh. And, climaxing all, the great American eagle still sometimes flies darkly against the sky. A popular children's story is of a log schoolhouse on the Columbia, where, on the Fourth of July, an eagle swooped down, took in his talons the school flag that floated from the summit of t
