302 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



July 



the others all following at once. I ran 

 after them to the edge in time to see the 

 last yearling drop off the edge of the 

 basalt cliff and stop short on the sheer 

 slope below, while the stones dislodged 

 by his hoofs rattled down the canon. 

 They all looked up at me with great in- 

 terest and then strolled off to the edge 

 of a jutting spur and lay down almost 

 directly underneath me and some fifty 

 yards off. That evening, on my return 

 to camp, we watched the band make its 

 way right down to the river bed, going 

 over places where it did not seem possi- 

 ble a four-footed creature could pass. 

 They halted to graze here and there, 

 and down the worst places they went 

 very fast with great bounds. It was a 

 marvelous exhibition of climbing. 



After we had finished this horseback 

 trip we went on sleds and skis to the 

 upper Geyser Basin and the Falls of the 

 Yellowstone. Although it was the third 

 week in April, the snow was still sev- 

 eral feet deep, and only thoroughly 

 trained snow horses could have taken 

 the sleighs along, while around the Yel- 

 lowstone Falls it was possible to move 

 only on snowshoes. There was very 



little life in those woods. We saw an 

 occasional squirrel, rabbit, or marten, 

 and in the open meadows around the 

 hot waters there were geese and ducks, 

 and now and then a coyote. Around 

 camp Clark crows and Stellar's jays, 

 and occasionally magpies, came to pick 

 at the refuse, and, of course, they were 

 accompanied by the whiskey jacks, with 

 their usual astounding familiarity. At 

 Norris Geyser Basin there was a perfect 

 chorus of bird music from robins, pur- 

 ple finches, juncos, and mountain blue- 

 birds. In the woods there were moun- 

 tain chickadees and nuthatches of va- 

 rious kinds, together with an occasional 

 woodpecker. In the northern country 

 we had come across a very few blue 

 grouse and ruffed grouse, both as tame 

 as possible. We had seen a pigmy owl 

 no larger than a robin sitting on top of 

 a pine in broad daylight and uttering, 

 at short intervals, a queer, un-owllike 

 cry. 



The birds that interested us most 

 were the solitaires, and especially the 

 dippers or waterousels. We were fortu- 

 nate enough to hear the solitaires sing, 

 not only when perched on trees, but on 



MOUNTAIN SHEEP AT CLOSE QUARTERS. 



