298 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA 



in vain to force a way through the innumerable 

 icebergs of Sum Burn Bay to the great glaciers at 

 the head of it, I was weary and baffled and sat 

 resting in my canoe convinced at last that I would 

 have to leave this part of my work for another 

 year. Then I began to plan my escape to open 

 water before the young ice which was beginning to 

 form should shut me in. While I thus lingered 

 drifting with the bergs, in the midst of these 

 gloomy forebodings and all the terrible glacial des 

 olation and grandeur, I suddenly heard the well- 

 known whir of an Ouzel's wings, and, looking up, 

 saw my little comforter coming straight across the 

 ice from the shore. In a second or two he was 

 with me, flying three times round my head with a 

 happy salute, as if saying, "Cheer up, old friend; 

 you see I 'm here, and all >s well." Then he flew 

 back to the shore, alighted on the topmost jag of a 

 stranded iceberg, and began to nod and bow as 

 though he were on one of his favorite boulders in 

 the midst of a sunny Sierra cascade. 



The species is distributed all along the mountain- 

 ranges of the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Mexico, 

 and east to the Eocky Mountains. Nevertheless, 

 it is as yet comparatively little known. Audubon 

 and Wilson did not meet it. Swainson was, I be 

 lieve, the first naturalist to describe a specimen 

 from Mexico. Specimens were shortly afterward 

 procured by Drummond near the sources of the 

 Athabasca River, between the fifty-fourth and 

 fifty-sixth parallels; and it has been collected by 

 nearly all of the numerous exploring expeditions 

 undertaken of late through our Western States and 



