BIRDS. 187 



Redstart: Setophaga ruticilla. — ]Mr. Bryant records the redstart 

 from the North Fork of the FLathead, and in 1895 Messrs. Bailey 

 and Howell saw several males at the St. Mary Lakes. 



In a countr}^ where they are uncommon the sudden sight of a 

 striking bird like the black and orange redstart, with its long, fan- 

 tail, seems an experience worth recording. We saw three — -one at 

 (jlacier Pai'k, one near the Reynolds cabin in the Waterton Valley, 

 and one at Lake McDonald, each bringing the thrill of surprise and 

 pleasure of an unexpected meeting with an old friend. 



Family MOTACILLID^: Wagtails. 



Pipit: Aiithus sinnolvtta ruhescens. — On the timberline slopes of 

 the park, stony and flower strewn, in company with the leucosticte and 

 l)tarmigan, one finds the pipit, smaller and more slender than the rosy 

 finch, and without his charming touches of color, but a hardy little 

 mountain friend for all of that, -with a dull brownish suit to j)rotect 

 him from enemies, and white enough on the outer edge of his dark 

 square tail to help his famil}' follow his flight. Better known when he 

 is going about in flocks on the lowlands in the migrations and winter 

 months, he may l)e recognized on his Arctic Alpine breeding grounds 

 by his deliberate walk, his habit of tipping his tail, and occasionally 

 nodding his head, and also by his plaintive l'e'-ine and cTieep'-e'p^ 

 uttered as he flies about, buffeted by a wind often too strong to stand 

 against, and which sometimes blows him back against a snowbank, 



A record of one's meetings with Anthus becomes a record of the 

 ]:»eaks and })asses visited, for while both ptarmigan and leucosticte are 

 often overlooked on hurried visits. Anthus is generally in evidence. 

 We found old ones feeding .young at Siyeh Pass, Gunsight Pass, 

 Piegan Pass, and Kootenai Pass, and saw them flying around on the 

 slopes adjoining Blackfeet Glacier. Dr. Grinnell, in the St. Mary 

 Lakes region, found them also on Flat Top, Goat Mountain, and Red 

 Eagle Mountain. 



Sometimes the pipits were found flying about over bare steep slide 

 rock ; once they kept me waiting for a long time on the edge of a can- 

 yon, flying from rock to rock, one of them finally eating up the in- 

 sects it had gathered rather than show me the hiding place of its 

 brood. On Gunsight Pass, where siskins flew overhead and leu- 

 costictes called around the peaks, the broken faces of strata regis- 

 tered the titanic convulsions of geologic ages, but the gentle hand 

 of time had lain disguising carpets of heather and moss and dwarf 

 firs, and conies squeaked from the interstices of coarse rock slides. 

 Here the familiar voice of the pipit was heard from rock masses 

 above and below, and round about us w-e discovered the little forms 



