8 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA No. 14 



made this change believing that it improves and betters the list, and with the 

 hope that a similar change will be adopted by the makers of the Check-List them- 

 selves wiien the next edition is published. 



While the work of eonipiling a list sncli as tlic present one is often tedious 

 and irksome, yet the original field work on whicii it is based has given me some 

 of the gi'eatest pleasures that I have had, pleasures that only the field ornitholo- 

 gist, bor'n w ith the love of wild birds, can appreciate. Thus, as I have gone over 

 these pages, recording references and migration dates, or \vorkin,'^ out ranges, I 

 have relieved the tedium by living over in retrospect many happy hours in the 

 field, in what is ornithologically one of the most interesting and wonderful of 

 our states. I have seen again the rolling prairies on a bright June morning, with 

 countless McCown Longsj)urs, rising into the air, and parachuting down into the 

 grass, or a male Curlew, charging with loud protest toward the man who has 

 ventured near his nest. I have seen tlie prairie ponds, dotted with ducks of many 

 species, with })ink and white Avocets wading about the muddy shores, and Coots 

 and Grebes swinuuing among tJie tules that border the fai-ther side. On the same 

 prairies, bleak with the winter snow and cold, I remember the whirling flocks 

 of Snow Buntings, Horned Larks, or Rosy Finches, or a single Snowy Owl, sit- 

 ting on a rise of ground, and flying silently away at my approach. The ever 

 changing mountains have been pictured in my memory; the wonderful little 

 Dipper, diving under a waterfall and emerging to sit on a wet stone and sing, 

 the friendly Rocky Mountain Jays, who came at the noon hour to shai'c my lunch 

 in the pine forest ; the cock Franklin Grouse, sitting in a dark green spruce top, 

 opening and closing the red "comb" over his eye; the Solitaire rising in flight- 

 song above the mountain peaks, his voice ringing loudly and melodiously through 

 the clear air; and the sweet evening chant of the White-crowned Spari-ow in the 

 willows near our camp by the lake shore. However scientifierdly "cut and 

 dried" the text of this list may seem, back of it is a living Montana, teeming with 

 interesting and wonderful bird life, worthy of greater attention from the future 

 ornithologist. To those who find pleasure in the birds of ]\Iontana in the fu- 

 ture, I hope that this list will be a help, and an inspiration to publish w^hatever 

 of their observations will make knowledge of our ])irds more perfect. 



Aretas a. Saunders. 



Nonralk, Connecticut, Dcccmhcr 2, 1919. 



