BIRDS. 157 



bird with long wings and white spots flying swiftly down from the 

 si)ires of an old burn. INIr, Bryant has shot it on top of high peaks 

 and thinks that it breeds in the Park. Dr. Grinnell saw one, as he 

 remembers, in 1891 in the St. Mary Lake woods, and in January, 

 l!)13, Mr. Stevenson saw what he describes as " a small owl with a 

 long tail " in the timber of a mountain top. On June 16, 1895, Messrs. 

 Bailey and Howell reported a female shot at Summit, when " feeding 

 in a marshy tract, watching its prey from the tops of dead trees." In 

 the winter of 1809-1900 Mr, Higginson reported one shot by Charles 

 Olson on the ridge back of his cabin, where it was busily eating a 

 Franklin grouse. 



Rocky Mountain Pygmy Owl: Glaucidium gnoma pinicola. — 

 A mounted specimen of the hornless pygmy owl, onl}' 6 or 7 inches 

 long, in the collection of Mr. Liebig, came from Lake McDonald, and 

 Mr. Bryant thinks it nests in the park, where it should be looked 

 for mainly in the pines and on dead trees. Although diurnal, this 

 tiny owl is more commonly seen at dusk or in the early morning 

 in September or October around the border of the prairie patches on 

 the west side of the Park. Mr. Bryant writes: " On a fine sunny day 

 the pygmy owl will often perch on the topmost twig of some tall 

 larch, and morning and evening give a peculiar but pleasing sort of 

 whistle." The white-headed lumberjacks " can mock them perfectly," 

 he says, and he adds, " Many times when I thought I was about to 

 collect a pygmy I have come face to face Avith the jack." 



Order COCCYGES: Cuckoos, Kingfishers, etc. 



Family ALCEDINID^: Kingfishers. 



Belted Kingfisher: Streptoceryle alcyon alcyon. — The bluish- 

 gray kingfisher is quite common in the park, along creeks where 

 there are fish. It was seen on Kennedy Creek, Belly River, the 

 North Fork of the Flathead, and Lake McDonald, and one came 

 flying up the sharp turns of the Swiftcurrent when we were camped 

 below Many Glaciers, where the high banks of the creek offered good 

 nesting sites. Just the right kind of soil is needed for the nest, 

 which is above high-water mark, at the end of a laboriously exca- 

 vated horizontal tunnel five or six feet long. 



In the park where harlequin ducks and water ouzels are the famil- 

 iars of the waterfalls and rapids along the mountain streams, the 

 rattle of the kingfisher is heard with a start, associated as it usually 

 is with placid pastiu-e brooks and quiet lake shores. 



