 Why is the story's setting important for the plot?
It would be several hours before they would begin to move, to learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly. Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, "Yes, sir, the dangerous age. The cranium was in the same proportion to the body as it is in the human. He would conclude, "I am convinced that they have a language and speak it intelligently." Volpla wisdom would become a cult—and of all forms of comedy, cults, I think, are the funniest. A 'copter sidled over the ridge, then came just above the oak woods toward us.
 The narrator's ranch is so big it can conceal its inhabitants.
 The narrator's ranch is so big it can conceal its inhabitants.  The volplas can only survive in California.  There are sparrows for the volplas to eat at the narrator's ranch.  The volplas originally lived in a similar landscape.