156 BiCKXELL on Hvlocichla alicne bicknelli. 



But to return to the mountain. It would IkiicUv be justifiable 

 to make a^positive statement al)out a difficult song that had been 

 but once identified, but I feel positive that the Thrushes which 

 were last heard that evening about our camp on the extreme 

 summit of the mountain were of the new form. Night was 

 rapidly falling, and the valleys were in darkness, when one sang 

 several times near the camp, and for some time afterwards a sin- 

 gle call-note was occasionally heard, and the varying distance of 

 the sound showed that the birds were still active. Excepting 

 these sounds, the last bird notes heard were those of the Yellow- 

 bellied Flycatcher. 



The sharp northwest wind continued late, and the night be- 

 came clear .and cold. Shortly after midnight the bright moon 

 showed the temperature, by a thermometer which I had hung 

 beside the camp, to be 35°. and at sunrise it stood at 33°. Before 

 davlight I was standing on a boulder of conglomerate on the dim 

 mountain's brow listening for the awakening of the birds. The 

 first songs heard were those of the Hermit Thrush. .Snowbird, 

 and Yellow-bellied Fhcatcher, \\hich l^'gan almost simultane- 

 ouslv. followed a little later by those of the Olive-backed Thrush 

 and the Mourning Warbler, but H. bicknelli was not heard, 

 or at least not near enough to be distinguished among the other 

 species. 



The increasing light upon the mountain seemed to attract the 

 birds from below, whither, perhaps, they had retired for the 

 night, and soon many difi'erent notes were to be heard about 

 the camp ; not. however, in that boisterous chorus with which 

 the day is often announced about our homes, in which the notes of 

 many individuals of many species are blended in such confused 

 medlev that separate voices are almost indistinguishable, but 

 simply the association of a few vocalists, the very isolation of 

 whose position endowed their voices with an additional interest 

 and charm. 



After those alreadv mentioned the Black-poll Warbler (^Den- 

 droeca striata) began its unpretending notes, which always to 

 me suggest a short dotted line, and this song, with that of the 

 Black-and-Yellow Warbler, occasionally alternated about us in 

 agreeable contrast. Now and then a Canada Nuthatch, on its 

 morning tour, tarried to inspect some dead trunk or thinly clothed 

 tree, upon the projecting apex of which, or that of some com- 



