70 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



be singing at a stone's throw up an acclivity, but if you 

 clamber toward them they will simply remove further 

 up the mountain, making your effort to see and hear 

 them at close range unavailing. That evening, how- 

 ever, as the gloaming settled upon the valley, one se- 

 lected a perch on a dead branch some distance up the 

 hillside, and obligingly permitted me to obtain a fail- 

 view of him with my glass. The hermits breed far up 

 in the mountains, the greatest altitude at which I found 

 them being on the sides of Bald Mountain, above Seven 

 Lakes and a little below the timber-line. To this day 

 their sad refrains are ringing in my ears, bringing back 

 the thought of many half-mournful facts and incidents 

 that haunt the memory. 



A good night's rest in the cottage, close beneath the 

 unceiled roof, prepared the bird-lover for an all-day 

 ramble. The matutinal concert was early in full swing, 

 the hermit thrushes, western robins, and Audubon's 

 warblers being the chief choralists. One gaudy Au- 

 dubon's warbler visited the quaking asp grove surround- 

 ing the cottage, and trilled the choicest selections of 

 his repertory. Farther up the valley several Wilson's 

 warblers were seen and heard. A shy little bird flit- 

 ting about in the tangle of grass and bushes in the 

 swampy ground above the lake was a conundrum to me 

 for a long time, but I now know that it was Lincoln's 

 sparrow, which was later found in other ravines among 



