!8 ullje Parbler 



four pairs which I knew to inhabit that gully. The one result is here oiven 

 — (Photograph III), — in one of those compromises between density and 

 clearness which every bird-photographer so thoroughly knows, — and so cord- 

 ially hates. There are here shown a thick, coarse nest on a sheerly steep 

 bank-side, well-grown with shrubs and plants ; and, in the nest, a vigorous 

 nearly-fledged Brewer Blackbird. Fairly up along the approaches of Sun- 

 dance Mountain were sundry scattered pairs of these familiar, hysterical birds. 

 I never gave them heed: with nests of the exquisitely-singing little Tolmie 

 Warbler liable to be betrayed to sight in every little bed of goose-berry, who 

 would heed a bevy of blackbirds ? 



Two years later I chanced upon a new sort of location for Brewer 

 Blackbird, along the prairie-edge of one of the narrow gulches that furrow 

 the earth-clad areas of the sides of Sundance Mountain. (In truth, I found the 

 "deserted village'' of a Winter's day ; and profited by it the next May-tide). 



There was a space, on the hill-slope, wholly given over to buck-brush 

 and rose and goose-berry. Here about seven pairs held undisputed sway, 

 in May. The great nests, — exactly like those of the Bronzed Grackle, bar- 

 ring the mud-plaster, — were sometimes re-used, in my judgment. With 

 that paradoxical contradictor! ness of habit which seems so much an essential 

 part of the character of the Brewer Blackbird, the essential feature of the 

 sites in this goose-berry-rose patch seemed to be the existence of dense 

 covert. Indeed, the raiding of a nest or two, thus hidden, set me to rollick- 

 ing about that goose-berry patch ; thrashing the bushes like any wanton 

 boy. It seemed, in the tingling- fury of this fun-inspired search, that I just 

 knew at what moment a sitting Brewer Blackbird was to emerge, with 

 many a spur and sputter, out of the mazes of some deep goose-berry bush ! 



(Photograph IV shows this type of nesting-site. It was not found in 

 this colony; but in a patch of goose-berry beside the creek at foot of Sun- 

 dance Mountain. There was no colony, there). But in that little colony 

 on the side of Sundance Mountain, that heavenly-beautiful place where so 

 many delightful surprises lay hidden, I made one of the really marked dis- 

 coveries inwrought in my experience with the Brewer Blackbird. (I tell 

 this later). In Mid-June of that same season, I was hunting nests of the 

 Canadian Ruffed Grouse amid the junipers on the second bench of the Bear 

 Lodge Mountains ; a mile south of Sundance. Im reaching these ""heaven- 

 kissing" heights, — (an altitude of 3000 feet, maybe), — one had to cross a 

 number of tiny park areas ; alternate desert -grass hill-side and gooseberry- 

 plum growth. Along the gully-bottoms were scattered growths of willow 

 trees; wherein the magpies reveled, in nesting-time. Small pines and oaks 

 grew along the slopes ; and one never knew at what moment some rare bird 

 might give animate or circumstantial evidence of its nuptial habitance. It 

 was a rarely fascinating place. The merely casual note of heed which I gave, 



