3 io AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



in our own country which sing in highest air, as does 

 the skylark, and their songs, though not as loud, are 

 almost as sustained; and though they lack the finer kind 

 of melody, so does his. The ousel, on the contrary, is a 

 really brilliant singer, and in his habits he is even farther 

 removed from the commonplace and the uninteresting 

 than the lark himself. Some birds, such as the ousel, 

 the mocking-bird, the solitaire, show marked originality, 

 marked distinction; others do not; the chipping sparrow, 

 for instance, while in no way objectionable (like the im- 

 ported house sparrow) , is yet a hopelessly commonplace 

 little bird alike in looks, habits and voice. 



On the last day of my stay it was arranged that I 

 should ride down from Mammoth Hot Springs to the 

 town of Gardiner, just outside the Park limits, and there 

 make an address at the laying of the corner-stone of the 

 arch by which the main road is to enter the Park. Some 

 three thousand people had gathered to attend the cere- 

 monies. A little over a mile from Gardiner we came 

 down out of the hills to the flat plain ; from the hills we 

 could see the crowd gathered around the arch waiting 

 for me to come. We put spurs to our horses and cantered 

 rapidly toward the appointed place, and on the way we 

 passed within forty yards of a score of blacktails, which 

 merely moved to one side and looked at us, and within 

 almost as short a distance of half a dozen antelope. To 

 any lover of nature it could not help being a delightful 

 thing to see the wild and timid creatures of the wilderness 

 rendered so tame; and their tameness in the immediate 

 neighborhood of Gardiner, on the very edge of the Park, 



