CHAPTER XXV 

 BRITISH COLUMBIA BIRDS 



VERY early on the morning of October 4th I was 

 awakened by a bird singing his matin song in a rollick- 

 ing, joyous mood, befitting early spring rather than the 

 early fall. He sang as if he was putting every atom of 

 strength that he possessed into the melody, for melody 

 it was. I couldn't sleep after he started, although very 

 tired from the previous day's hard work. The bird was 

 singing in one of a clump of cotton wood trees across the 

 Bear River, and his song, while bewitching to the ear, 

 was totally new to me, and I couldn't make it out. 



I turned to nudge my bedfellow Dr. W. E. Hughes 

 and asked him if he knew what it was. He had also 

 been awakened by the songster, and was then trying to 

 see if he could recognize the identity of the singer. He 

 ventured to say that it must be a robin, although his 

 song was radically different from his eastern relatives. 

 In a few minutes one of the men down-stairs a native 

 said to a late riser : " Get up. Don't you hear the 

 robin singing to you as if his heart would break ? Get 

 up get up you laggard." And so it was a robin, but 

 oh, so different from ours, and this made us note the 

 various kinds of song birds and of game birds that we 

 saw in this far-off part of British Columbia. 



