INS PAE SAW TOOTH 
Our camp was established in the 
Sawtooth mountains, July 17, on Pettit 
lake (nine miles from here) by Prof. S. 
E. Meek of Arkansas University, and 
Mr. M. B. Scofield of Stamford Uni- 
versity. I joined them August 9. On 
August 28 we moved camp to this place, 
on the inlet a few rods above Alturas 
lake. It is three miles over the moun- 
tain to Sawtooth, our post-office, a once 
flourishing town of several hundred 
people, now only four men, three wo- 
men, and nine children to occupy the 
forty-five houses. We are 7,200 ft. 
above sea level. The days are cool 
enough, and the nights are cold. Fre- 
quently the thermometer has been 
down to 19° at 7 A. M., and it is below 
freezing every night. But why should 
we care, when we have plenty of blank- 
ets ‘spread over a thick bed of fir and 
Spruce, and a 12x14 wall tent? We 
don’t! 
Plenty ‘of game; deer, mountain 
goats, b’ar, blue grouse, Franklin 
grouse, sage hens, ducks, geese, bull 
trout, cut-throat trout, salmon, red- 
fish, etc., etc. We have had all these 
things since I came to camp. 
We are here studying the spawning 
habits of the redfish (Oncorhynchus 
nerka) and the Chinook salmon (Oz- 
corhynchus tschawytscha) and other fish 
and things incidentally. And we are 
learning a ‘‘whole lot” about them, 
too. We are also exploring the lakes 
about here, and getting their dimen- 
sions, «depths, etc., ete. Have an, Os- 
good canvas boat, so can go where we 
*From a private letter of Dr. B. W. Everman, of the 
U.S. Fish Commission. 


MOUNTAINS.* 
please on the water; 294 feet is the 
deepest we have yet found—that in 
Redfish lake, twenty miles below here. 
Alturas lake is 158 feet deep. 
There are scores of things here that 
interest one ; the chief regret I have is 
that I can’t watch more things all the 
time. The chipmunks (two species) 
and red squirrels come into our camp, 
and crawl over and among our things 
and inspect everything. Snowbirds, 
camp-robbers, chickadees, magpies, 
brown creepers and sparrows, also visit 
us daily; a flock of Brewers’ blackbirds 
feed in the meadow near us, and a pair 
of kingfishers explore our part of the 
Greek two of three times a day. “At 
night a loon on the lake makes dismal 
sounds, along with the hootings of two 
owls on the mountain side above us. 
In the morning we hear, but never see, 
the strange, ghost-like swish of the 
mountain whirlwind as it travels up 
the canon, and in the evening we are 
startled by the dreamy note of the 
sandhill crane on the meadow below 
the lake, just as the sun goes down. 
And again, in the middle of the night, 
when sleep is cheap at a dollar a min- 
ute, we are sometimes roused up by: 
‘‘Say, you fellows! Sawtooth Jim 
has gotten his rope mixed with the tent 
ropes, and will pull our tent down if 
you don’t look after him.” (Sawtooth 
is our horse. Cost $10.00.) Or, ‘‘ Hi, 
there! Whatisthe matter with Jim? 
I believe there is a bear in camp.”’ 
And so it goes, and we all grow 
tough and strong. We will be here 
about two weeks yet, then home. 
