THE WAPITI. 195 



and sailing round and round it, in noisy pur- 

 suit 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 passing 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 on 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 run- 

 ning on the bottom of the stream, several 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 



