woodland pool; but on the first occasion it took the parent bird exactly halt 
an hour to go thru all the feints and preliminaries before she ventured on 
the final plunge. There were half-grown babies in this nest, and since we 
were in summer camp (at Glacier, near the foot of Mt. Baker), I resolved 
to make friends of this promising family with a view to portraiture. 
As I sat next day watching my Juncoes, and waiting for the sun to get 
around and light up the vicinity of the nest, the call to dinner sounded. ‘The 
mother bird, not without much misgiving and remonstrance, had just visited 
her babies, so I rose to go; but as | did so, caught sight of a stout garter 
snake, who lay watching the scene from a distance of fully twenty feet, a 
wicked gleam of intelligence in his eye. With quick suspicion of his pur- 
pose, I seized stones and hurled at his retreating form; but the ground was 
rough and he managed to escape into a large brush-pile. At table I ate 
hurriedly, listening the while for the faintest note of trouble. When it came, 
a quick outcry from both parents, instead of premonitory notes of discovery, 
I sprang to my feet, clutched a stick, and rushed down to the spring. Alas 
for us! Satan had found our Eden! The nest was emptied and the snake 
lay coiled over it in the act of swallowing one of the little birds. Not daring 
to strike, I seized him by the throat and released the baby Junco, whose 
rump only had disappeared into the devouring jaws. Then with the stick 
I made snake’s-head jelly on a rock and flung the loathsome reptile away. 
But it was all too late. One young bird lay drowned upon the bottom of 
the pool, and the other (I think there were only two) soon died of fright 
and the laceration of the hinder parts attendant upon ophidian deglutition. 
It was all so horrible! the malignant plan, the stealthy approach, the sudden 
alarm, the wanton destruction of the fledglings, the grief of the agonized 
parents, the remorse of the helper who came too late! Is it any wonder 
that our forbears have pictured the arch-enemy as a serpent? 
No. 49. 
WESTERN TREE SPARROW. 
A. O. U. No. 559a. Spizella monticola ochracea Brewster. 
Description.—Adults: Pileum, a streak behind eye and a small patch on 
side of chest cinnamon-rufous or light chestnut; a superciliary stripe and remain- 
ing portions of head and neck clear ashy gray; throat and chest of same shade 
superficially but duller by virtue of concealed dusky; an ill defined spot of dusky 
in center of lower chest; remaining underparts dull white washed on sides with 
brownish; general color of upperparts light buffy grayish brown, much out- 
cropping black on back, scapulars and tertials; some rusty edging on back 
feathers, scapulars and greater wing-coverts; middle and greater wing-coverts 
