174 WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, 



often that tlic gray border made a good field character, and now and 

 then a deeply notched tail or a bright pink wing patch showed 

 clearly. Back and forth across the trail they flew, now hunting over 

 the grassy flower-strewn ground, now examining the dwarf firs, and 

 now hunting over the great snowbank on the side of Piegan ISIoun- 

 tain. 



On Kootenai Pass leucostictes were also found, but of all the rare 

 sunanits on which these birds of the peaks were seen perhaps the 

 best was in the Boundary IMountains. A family of five were flushed 

 here from a ridge whose suunnit was crowned by a monument mark- 

 ing the International Boundary, and near which a green swath 

 through the forest divided British Columbia and Alberta. Here, 

 where the mountains of the park reach their culminating grandeur, 

 lofty peaks and ranges are gathered in such close conclave as to 

 suggest a council of chiefs from north, south, east, and west. The 

 broad seamed face of Agassiz glacier, the rough cascaded front of 

 Kintla Glacier, with Kintla Peak towering 4.000 feet above its lake ; 

 snow patches, glaciers, looming peaks, ridge close behind ridge, and 

 below, a mantle of dark timber — such was the chosen home of 

 Leucosticte. 



Hardy mountaineers, in spring while the mountain tops are still 

 l)uried under snow, they may be found in the low mountain valleys; 

 but in late fall they have been found high up in the mountains, and 

 seen in the valleys only in the worst snowstorms. 



Redpoll: Acanth'/s linnria h'naHa. — A specimen of this redpoll 

 with crimson crown, black chin, and streaked body was given us by 

 Mr. Bryant, who said that in the spring one would think the Flat- 

 head River the main avenue of travel north for the juncos and red- 

 polls of all North America. Mr. Gibb has seen redpolls in the park 

 in winter. 



From Stanton Lake, in the winter of 1900, Mr. Higginson wrote : 

 " Toward the beginning of February we began to hear these bright 

 little songsters, sounding for all the world like a canary, singing away 

 on the border of the lake. Just across from the cabin was a little 

 thicket of alder bushes, and in this thicket the redpolls could almost 

 always be found. They fed on the buds of this bush and there they 

 would hang half the time head clown stuffing themselves full, and 

 only stopping every now and then to sing." As the lake is only 

 about two miles from the park, the bii-ds might easily stray across 

 the border. 



Pine Siskin : Sp'mus pJnus pmus. — One of the notes most fre- 

 quently heard in the higher parts of the park is the wild split note 

 of the little siskin, the brown-striped cousin of the goldfinch, which, 



