RAMBLES ABOUT GEORGETOWN 



211 



as we arrived in the vicinity of Green Lake. A family 

 of them were hurtling about in the pine woods, allow- 

 ing themselves to be inspected at short range, and filling 

 the hollows with their uncanny calls. \Miat a voice 

 tlie mountain jay has ! Nature did a queer thing when 

 she put a "horse-fiddle"''' into the larynx 

 of this bird — but it is not ours to ask ,■■ 

 the reason why, simply to study her a 

 she is. In marked contrast with the harsh 

 calls of these mountain hobos were the 

 roulades of the sweet and musical ruby- 

 crowned kinglets, which had absented themselves 

 from the lower altitudes, but were abundant in 

 the timber belts about ten thousand feet up the T 

 range and still higher. 



On the border of the lake, among some gnarlv 

 pines, I stumbled upon a woodpecker that was 

 entirely new to my eastern eyes — one that I 

 had not seen in my previous touring among 

 the heights of the Rockies. He was sedu- 

 lously pursuing his vocation — a divine 

 call, no doubt — of chiselling; frmbs 

 out of the bark of the pine trees, 

 making the chips fly, and produc- 

 ing at intervals that musical 



Sapiuckers 



" Chiselling grubs out of the bark" 



