THE AMERICAN PIPIT. ; 223 
direct. But here there is suspicion of desultory wintering on the one hand 
(I have a record of forty birds seen on the Nisqually Flats, Feb. 10, 1906; 
and Fannin says they sometimes winter on Vancouver Island) and there is 
always a small percentage of loiterers who linger into May. Spring flocks 
may be looked for in freshly-plowed fields, where they feed attentively, often 
in absolute silence, moving about with “graceful, gliding walk, tilting the body 
and wagging the tail at each 
step, much in the manner of 
a Serius.’ 
Pipits are boreal breeders ; 
but inasmuch as our own 
superb Alps claim kinship 
with the Arctic, there is no 
more favorable spot to study 
the nesting of the Pipits 
than upon the Cascades of 
northern Washington. At 
home the Pipit is a very 
different creature from the 
straggler of the long trail. 
On his native heather, sur- 
rounded by dwarfed fir 
trees, melting snow-fields. 
and splendid vistas of peak 
and cloud, he knows exactly 
what he wants and is quite 
capable of flying in a 
straight line. 
All is bustle and _ stir 
along Ptarmigan Ridge,— 
the transverse rock-rib of 
Cascade Pass which divides 
the waters of Stehekin, 
Chelan, and the Columbia OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS. 
from those of the Cascade, A CHARACTERISTIC SUMMER HAUNT OF THE PIPIT. 
Skagit, and Puget Sound. 
The season is late, June 23, 1906, and the snows have only just released the 
ridge at 6000 feet elevation. Slate-colored Sparrows are carolling tenderly 
from the thickets of stunted fir. Sierra Hermit Thrushes, those minstrels 
of heaven, flit elusively from clump to clump or pause to rehearse from their 
Taken in Skagit County. Photo by W. L. Dawson. 
depths some spiritual strain. Leucostictes look in upon the scene in passing, 
but they hasten at a prudent thought to their loftier ramparts. The real 
