MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 



223 



The beautiful mountain-quail loves to scram- 

 ble over these stones, especially when they are 

 in the water ; and the mountain-quail is here. 

 This is his abiding-place, and you are sure to 

 see him, for he has a curiosity akin to that of 

 the antelope and must get on a bowlder or a log 

 to look at you. And this is the home of hun- 

 dreds of woodpeckers that seem to spend their 

 entire lives in pounding holes in the pine-trees 

 and then pounding acorns into the holes. It 

 is a very thrifty practice and provides against 

 winter consumption, only the squirrels consume 

 the greater part of the acorns if the blue-jays 

 do not get ahead of them. For here lives the 

 ordinary blue-jay and also his mountain cousin, 

 the crested jay, with a coat so blue that it might 

 better be called indigo. A beautiful bird, but 

 with a jangling note that rasps the air with dis- 

 cord. His chief occupation seems to be climb- 

 ing pine-trees as by the rungs of a ladder. 

 There are sweeter notes from the warblers, the 

 nuthatches, and the chickadees. But no desert- 

 bird comes up so high ; and as for the common 

 lawn and field birds like the robin and the 

 thrush, they do not fancy the pines. 



Upward, still upward, under the spreading 

 arms of the pines ! How silent the forest save 



Mountain- 

 quail. 



Indigo jays. 



Warblers. 



