THE HEPBURN LEUCOSTICTE. 70 
purity thereon displayed? If so, she will not appreciate the Leucosticte. 
This bird is the vestal virgin of the snows, the attendant minister of Nature’s 
loftiest altars, the guardian of the glacial sanctuaries. 
One who loves the mountains cannot measure his praise nor bound his 
enthusiasm. Their sublimity bids him forget his limitations; and if one 
happens also to care for birds, it is matter of small justice to laud a bird 
whose devotion to the peaks appears as boundless as his own, besides knowing 
neither admixture of caution nor limitation of opportunity. Here is the 
patron saint of mountaineers! He alone of all creatures is at home on the 
heights, and he is not even dependent upon the scanty vegetation which 
follows the retreating snows, since he is able to wrest a living from the very 
glaciers. Abysses do not appall him, nor do the flower-strewn meadows of 
the lesser heights alienate his snow-centered affections. 
Taken in Chelan County. Photo by the Author. 
“THE CHILLY WILDERNESS OF SNOW-CLAD PEAKS.” 
Looking out on the chilly wilderness of snow-clad peaks which confronts 
Leucosticte on an early day in June, one wonders what the bird sees to justify 
the assumption of family cares. Save for a few dripping south exposures 
of inhospitable rock, there is nothing visible which affords promise of food 
unless it be the snow itself. And when one sees a little company of the 
