18 The Mountaineer 
brown mite flashed out and with spread wings sailed to the 
base of another tree, about the trunk of which he began to 
circle. The opera-glass said it was the Sierra Creeper at his 
endless task of filling an empty stomach, and with what in- 
terest he staved at his work until the frightened call of a 
pine squirrel caused him to “freeze” to the side of the tree 
where he was lost to sight from his resemblance to the rough 
excretions of the bark. 
Far above came the cry “Just three years,” and again the 
opera-glass displayed, balanced on the very tip-top of a dead 
tree, an Olive-sided Flycatcher repeating his phrase over and 
over. Suddenly he boldly launched out into the open air and 
turned a somersault two hundred and _ fifty feet above the 
ground. He caught his prey midway in the turn = and 
returned to his solitary perch where, hunching up 
his shoulders and shifting his head from side to_ side, 
he resumed his disconsolate wail. The dismal solo soon 
became a duet, but the second singer’s tune was the 
melancholy “Dear me,” of the Western Wood Pewee, awak- 
ened from his afternoon nap making his customary unfavor- 
able comments upon life. It was but a moment before he 
darted into sight but not aimlessly, as the damsel fly he was 
after possibly had time to consider before it was swallowed. 
The day’s good fortune was not vet ended, because on the way 
back to camp was seen a Yellow Warbler, a Belted Kingfisher 
and a MaeGillivray Warbler. Then at the evening meal a 
Steller Jay and a Gray Jay joined the circle with insistent 
demands for a share of that which had been provided. In 
thankfulness for the uplift of the mountain day they were not 
grudged their portion. 
REPORT OF THE BOTANISTS. 
Dr. Cora Smite Eaton AND WINONA BAILEY. 
Next to the grandeur of mountain peaks themselves, with 
their vast snow fields and rivers of ice, their rocky steeps 
and pathless forests, nothing more frequently claims the at- 
tention of the Mountaineer, and calls forth his expressions 
of delight than the flowers that carpet the hillside, or hide 
