Vol i.9of IV ] Cameron, Birds of Custer & Davenport Counties, Mont. 245 



species were found to be the Slender-billed Nuthatch (Sitta caro- 

 linensis acaleata), Chickadee (Parus atricapillus occidental is), 

 and Townsend's Solitaire (Myadestes townsendii). 



Another very wild range of badlands, commencing opposite Terry, 

 extends along the north side of the Yellowstone River to a point 

 about four miles west of the mouth of Custer Creek. I have 

 explored these badlands many times, and have noted among 

 other remarkable features a silicified tree bridging a ravine. Other 

 smaller tracts of badlands occur on the Powder River and else- 

 where. 



In the badlands of the Yellowstone, despite their reputed arid- 

 ness, there are surprising bursts of sporadic vegetation. Over 

 the sombre clay walls and terraces the flowery month of June 

 splashes a bright blaze of brilliant colors, as on a painter's palette 

 — here a rich gamboge of yellow daisies, there the deep mauve 

 of hyacinthine blooms, elsewhere the delicate carmine of cluster- 

 ing vetches, and the chaste white of Mariposa lilies. Yellow 

 pines are most numerous and reach their greatest development 

 around Ekalaka and Knowlton (Custer County). A pine covered 

 area thirty miles long, extends from five miles east of Medicine 

 Rocks to a point fifteen miles south of Ekalaka. About five miles 

 south and east of the latter it becomes a regular forest; some of 

 the trees are three feet in diameter, and attain a height of sixty 

 feet before they are branched. 



The Avidest belt of pines and cedars combined is formed by the 

 impenetrable thickets on Cedar Creek (Custer County), which 

 runs into the Yellowstone at Monroe Island Rapids. In places 

 this belt is over two miles across. I built a rough shack and stable 

 within these woods, where, in the early nineties, I was accustomed 

 to go every winter for a few weeks to hunt deer. The thickets 

 were simply alive with Bohemian Waxwings, which subsisted 

 on cedar berries, and gyrated in thousands when disturbed from 

 the high pines beneath which the red stained snow gave evidence 

 of their familiar roosting places. In summer, among the charac- 

 teristic birds which nest in the pine-hills, are Pirion Jays, Chipping 

 Sparrows, Lazuli Buntings, Chickadees, and Mountain Blue- 

 birds. My ranch in Custer County, five miles south of Terry, 

 was a great haunt of Sharp-tailed Grouse and many other birds, 



