224 THE AMERICAN PIIMT. 



busybodies of tlie place are tlie Pipits. Females, lisping suspiciously, hurry 

 to and fro, discussing locations, matching straws, playfully rebuking over- 

 bold swains, and liastily gulping insects on the side. Tlie male birds hover 

 about their mates solicitously — never liel])ing. of course — or else sing lustily 

 from prominent knolls and rocks. 



Tlie Pipit song in many of its phases is strikingly like that of the Rock 

 Wren ( Salf>iiiclcs ohsolrtiis). It has the same vivacity and ringing <piality, 

 tho ])eriiaps less jMiwer, and the similarity extends to the very phrasing. An 

 alarm note runs picltoo pichoo picUoo, given six or seven times, rapidly and 

 enii)hatically : while another, «'tv I'lV/i, vcc iicli, «'tv iicli, is rendered, unless 

 my eyes deceive me, with the same springing motion which ciiaracterizes the 

 Wren. .\n ecstacy song of courting time ( heard on Mount Rainier ) runs ttviss 

 twiss hciss /7C/.V.V (oii lib.), uttered as rapidly as the syllables may 1m; said. It 

 is delivered as the bird descri!)es great slow circles in mid-air; and when the 

 singer is exhau.>ited by his efforts, he falls like a spent rocket to the groun<l. 



For all this activity, however, the nests are hard to find. Finally, as we 

 kee|> ascending the ridge, bare save for occasional ])atches of snow in the 

 lioUows. Jack spies an old nest, last year's i^f course, in the recess of a soil 

 tussock, completely overarched by earth. The secret is out, and we can 

 search with more intelligence now. Soon I Hush a female at her task of in- 

 cuI>ation. She has been digging out a ])ocket, or cave, in a moist bank which 

 the snow had set free not above tiiree days before. The earth reiuoved from 

 the interior is piled up for the lower rim. or wall, and a few rootlets, doubt- 

 less those secured in the process of excavation, have lieeu culled i>ut and laid 

 liorizontally along tlie edge of the dirt. The hole is about as large as my 

 ilouble fists, ami the nest, wlien completed, evidently cannot lie injured by 

 failing snow. 



In July of the following year, work was carried on in the L'pper Horse- 

 shoe Rasin, a few miles further north. The song period was evidently past, 

 but a nest of five eggs slightly incubated, was taken from a heather slope on 

 the 20th of the month. The sitting binl flushed from under the be.iting 

 stick, but only after I had pas.scd. 



On the 17th. a ventures^ome climb over the rock-wall which fronts the 

 glacier of the L'pper Rasin. had yielded only a last year's Leucosticte's nest. 

 As I was nearly down the cliff and breathing easier, a Pipit flew unannounced 

 from a spur of the difl' upon which I was standing to the one beyond. Fvi- 

 flentlv she had heard tlie call of her mate, for the instant she lighted upon the 

 cliff he was near her. Rut budge not a foot would he: whether he was sus- 

 picious or only exacting, one could not quite tell. .\t any rate he kept giving 

 vent to a ringing metallic note of appreliensi<in. The female coaxc<l with 

 fluttering wings, and moved slowly forward as she did so. finally securing 

 the worm from her reluctant lord, when — whisk! she was back again and out 



