BALD PEAKS AND GREEN VALES 73 



birds already observed in the valley, I listened to the 

 theme-like recitative of a warbling vireo, and also 

 watched a sandpiper teetering about the edge of the 

 water, while a red-shafted flicker dashed across the lake 

 to a pine tree on the opposite side. As I left this at- 

 tractive valley, the hermit thrushes seemed to waft me 

 a sad farewell. 



A little over half a day was spent in walking down 

 from Moraine Lake to the Halfway House. It was a 

 saunter that shall never be forgotten, for I gathered a 

 half day's tribute of lore^ from the birds. A narrow 

 green hollow, wedging itself into one of the gorges of 

 the towering Peak, and watered by a snow-fed moun- 

 tain brook, proved a very paradise for birds. Here 

 was that queer little midget of the Rockies, the broad- 

 tailed humming-bird, which performs such wonderful 

 feats of balancing in the air ; the red-shafted flicker ; 

 the western robin, singing precisely like his eastern half- 

 brother ; a pair of house-wrens guarding their treasures ; 

 Lincoln's sparrows, not quite so shy as those at Mo- 

 raine Lake ; mountain chickadees; olive-sided flycatchers; 

 on the pine-clad mountain sides the lyrical hermit 

 thrushes ; and finally those ballad-singers of the moun- 

 tain vales, the white-crowned sparrows, one of whose 

 nests I was so fortunate as to come upon. It was 

 placed in a small pine bush, and was just in process of 

 construction. One of the birds flew fiercely at a mis- 



