174 The Wilderness Hunter. 



bling in some tall tree-top and sailing round and round it, 

 in noisy pursuit of one another, lighting continually among 

 the branches. 



The Lewis' woodpecker, a handsome, dark-green bird, 

 with white breast and red belly, is much rarer, quite as 

 shy, and generally less noisy and conspicuous. Its flight 

 is usually strong and steady, like a jay's, and it perches 

 upright among the twigs, or takes short flights after pass- 

 ing insects, as often as it scrambles over the twigs in the 

 ordinary woodpecker fashion. Like its companion, the 

 Clarke's crow, it is ordinarily a bird of the high tree-tops, 

 and around these it indulges in curious aerial games, again 

 like those of the little crow. It is fond of going in troops, 

 and such a troop frequently choose some tall pine and 

 soar round and above it in irregular spirals. 



The remarkable and almost amphibious little water 

 wren, with its sweet song, its familiarity, and its very 

 curious habit of running on the bottom of the stream, sev- 

 eral feet beneath the surface of the race of rapid water, 

 is the most noticeable of the small birds of the Rocky 

 Mountains. It sometimes sings loudly while floating with 

 half-spread wings on the surface of a little pool. Taken 

 as a whole, small birds are far less numerous and notice- 

 able in the wilderness, especially in the deep forests, than 

 in the groves and farmland of the settled country. The 

 hunter and trapper are less familiar with small-bird music 

 than with the screaming of the eagle and the large hawks, 

 the croaking bark of the raven, the loon's cry, the crane's 

 guttural clangor, and the unearthly yelling and hooting of 

 the big owls. 



