72 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



them seems perfectly level, but when you visit the place 

 itself, you learn that some of them are separated from 

 the others by ridges of considerable height. Beautiful 

 and sequestered as the spot is, I did not find as many 

 birds as I expected. Not a duck or water bird of any 

 kind was seen. Perhaps there is too much hunting 

 about the lakes, and, besides, winged visitors here would 

 have absolutely no protection, for the banks are free of 

 bushes of any description, and no rushes or flags grow 

 in the shallower parts. On the ridges and mountain 

 sides the kinglets and hermit thrushes were abundant, 

 a robin was carolling, a Batchelder woodpecker chirped 

 and pounded in his tumultuous way, Clark's crows and 

 several magpies lilted about, while below the lakes in 

 the copses the white-crowned sparrows and green-tailed 

 towhees held lyrical carnival, their sway disputed only 

 by the natty Wilson's warblers. 



It was a pleasure to be alive and well in such a place, 

 where one breathed invigoration at every draught of 

 the fresh, untainted mountain air; nor was it less a 

 delight to sit on the bank of one of the transparent 

 lakes and eat my luncheon and quaff from a pellucid 

 spring that gushed as cold as ice and as sweet as nectar 

 from the sand, while the white-crowned sparrows trilled 

 a serenade in the copses. 



Toward evening I clambered down to the cottage by 

 Moraine Lake. The next morning, in addition to the 



