THE MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD. 261 



we have only two records of its occurrence on tlie Pacific slope in Washing- 

 ton^. The hird ranges up to the highest peaks of the central divide, but it is 

 not at all common in the mountains. It seems to prefer more open situations 

 and. so far from being exclusi\el_\- boreal in its tastes, has been found nesting 

 at as low an altitude as W'allula, on the banks of the Columbia River. 



At Chelan in a typical season ( 1896) the migrations opened with tlie ap- 

 pearance, on the J4th day of February, of seven males of most perfect beauty. 

 They deployed upon the townsite in search of insects, and uttered plaintive 

 notes of Sialian cjuality, varied by dainty, thrush-like tsooks of alarm when too 

 closely pressed. They did not at any time attempt song, and the entire song 

 tradition, including the "delightful warble" of Townsend, appears to be cjuite 

 without fountlation, as in the case of S. in. occiilcnfalis. On the 15th of March 

 a flock of fifty Bluebirds, all males, were sighted flving in close order over the 

 mountain-side, a vision of loveliness which was enhanced by the presence of a 

 dozen or more ^Vesterns. Several flocks were observed at this season in which 

 the two species mingled freely. On the 27th of the same month the last 

 great wave of migration was noted, and some two hundred birds, all "Arctics" 

 now, and at least a third of them females, quartered themselves upon us for a 

 day, — with what delighted appreciatiijn upon our part may best be imagined. 

 The males are practically all azure; but the females have a much more modest 

 garb of reddish gray, or stone-olive, which flashes into blue on wings and tail, 

 only as the l>ird flits from post to post. 



In nesting. Mountain Bluebirds sometimes display the same confidence 

 shown [)\- the darker species : and their adoption into urban, or at least \-illage 

 life, would seem to be onl_\- a matter of time. They are a gentle breed, and it 

 is an honor of which we may well stri\-e to prove wurtln-, to be chosen as 

 hosts by these distinguished gentlefolk. 



"Gentle," as applied to Bluebirds, has always the older sense of noble, — 

 noble because brave. My attention was first called to a nest in the timbered 

 foothills of Yakima County, because its valiant owner furiously beset a Flicker 

 of twice his size, a clumsy villain wdio had lighted by mistake on the Bluebird's 

 nesting stub. The gallant defender did not use these tactics on the bird-man, 

 but his accents were sternly accusing as the man proceeded to investigate a 

 clean-cut hole eight feet up in a pine stub four feet thru. Five dainty eggs 

 of the palest possible blue rested at the buttom of the cavity on a soft cushion 

 of fine grasses. 



This must have been a typical structure, Ijut near Chelan I found the birds 

 nesting at the end of a tunnel dri\en into a perpendicular bank much fre- 



a. First record by R. H. Lawrence: Two seen on Stevens Prairie [Gray's Harbor County] .^pril 22 

 [1891] {Vide .^uk. Vol. IX-, Jan. 1892, p. 47). Second record by the author: Male and female with 

 five full-grown young encountered near Sluiskin Falls on Mt, Rainier, July 7, 1908, at an altitude of 

 6500 feet. 



