BALD PEAKS AND GREEN VALES 6l 



these birds in their breeding haunts. The nest was a 

 pretty structure placed on the ground, beneath a bush 

 amid the green grass, its holdings consisting of four 

 dainty, pale-blue eggs, speckled with brown. The 

 female leaped from her seat as I passed near, and in 

 that act divulged her little family secret. Although 

 she chirped uneasily as I bent over her treasures, she 

 had all her solicitude for nothing ; the last thing I 

 would think of doing would be to mar her maternal 

 prospects. As has been said, in this valley these hand- 

 some sparrows were quite plentiful ; but when, toward 

 evening, I clambered over a ridge, and descended into 

 the valley of Moraine Lake, several hundred feet lower 

 than the Seven Lakes valley, what was my surprise to 

 find not a white-crown there ! The next day I trudged 

 up to the Seven Lakes, and found the white-crowns 

 quite abundant in the copses, as they had been farther 

 up the hollow on the previous day ; and, besides, in a 

 boggy place about two miles below Moraine Lake there 

 were several pairs, and I was fortunate enough to find 

 a nest. Strange was it not ? that these birds 

 should avoid the copsy swamps near Moraine Lake, and 

 yet select for breeding homes the valleys both above 

 and below it. Perhaps the valley of Moraine Lake is 

 a little too secluded and shut in by the towering 

 mountains on three sides, the other places being more 

 open and sunshiny. 



