— 5— 



two thousand feet or more, from whose crevices leap several 

 miniature waterfalls like threads of spray. Along this impend- 

 ing cliff hawks and ravens rear their young on shelving crags, 

 and the towering walls give back their harsh cries. 



From the southern shore of the lake ^it. McDonald rises 

 abruptly, stretching southward in craggy outline and snow-clad 

 sides until it towers majestically into the clouds, the monarch 

 of the Mission range 



Owing to the precipitous margins of McDonald Lake, col- 

 lecting was attended with unusual difficulty and hardship. A 

 specimen only a thousand feet away up the mountain side 

 could he secured only by most arduous climbing, and even 

 then was likely to take its departure to a niore inaccessible 

 station higher up the slope before the collector was within 

 gunshot. Unidentified Eaptores circled near the top of the 

 cliff in perfect disregard of futile efforts to secure them. Once 

 a Townsend's solitaire was shot, and it fell five hundred feet 

 down the cliff, entailing a half hour's work to recover it and 

 regain the lost ground. However, to the northward of the 

 lake we found more accessible ground, in the heayj^ woods 

 through which the outlet of the lake threaded its way, and 

 forty-seven species was the result of our notes at this station. 



FEOM MT. McDonald to flathead lake. 



From Lake McDonald, imprisoned at the base of Mt. Mc- 

 Donald by a small moraine, the descent to the general level 

 of the Reservation is rapid and easy, the difference being more 

 than a thousand feet. Within a mile of the lake the variation 

 in the avifauna is noticeable. 



Between the base of the mountains and Flathead Lake, there 

 is a treeless valley, except such dwarf and water-loving 

 trees as are found along most of the Montana water-courses. 

 Scattered here and there over the plain, sometimes no farther 

 than a hundred yards apart, again separated by a mile or more, 

 are curious formations, depressions containing pools of stag- 

 nant water, often fringed by a growth of flags or coarse grass. 

 Most of these depressions become dry as the season advances, 

 though the larger ones retain a supply of water until the fall 

 or winter storms fill them and change the neighborhood into 

 spreading marsh. These pools attract the resident and migrant 

 shore and water birds, and offer a valuable collecting ground 

 for the ornithologist. The surrounding plain is inhabited by 



