302 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



was master. Sometimes he would sit on the top of a 

 bush or a fence-post, but his favorite perches were sev- 

 eral ridges of sand and gravel. His flight was the 

 picture of grace, and he had a habit of lifting his 

 wings, now one, now the other, and often both, after 

 the manner of the mocking-bird on a chimney -top. He 

 and his mate did not utter a chirp, but made a great 

 to-do by singing, and finally I discovered that all the 

 fuss was not about a nest, but about a hulking young- 

 ster that had outgrown his kilts and looked very like a 

 brown thrasher. Neither of this second pair of soli- 

 taires performed any evolutions in the upper air ; nor 

 did another pair that I found far up a snow-clad moun- 

 tain near Breckenridge, on the other side of the Conti- 

 nental Divide. 



The scientific status of this unique bird is interesting. 

 He is a species of the genus Myadestes, which belongs 

 to the family Turdidce, including the thrushes, stone- 

 chats, and bluebirds, as well as the solitaires. He is 

 therefore not a thrush, but is closely related to the 

 genus Turdus, occupying the same relative position in 

 the avi-faunal system. According to Doctor Coues the 

 genus includes about twenty species, only one of which 

 the one just described is native to the United 

 States, the rest being found in the West Indies and 

 Central and South America. Formerly the solitaires 

 comprised a subfamily among the chatterers, but a later 



