ORNITHOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY. 



RED-AND-WHITE-WINGED TROOPIAL. 



Icterus tricolor. 



PLATE CCCLXXXVIII. Male, 



How delightful, I have often exclaimed, must have been the feel- 

 ings of those enthusiastic naturalists, my friends Nuttall and Town- 

 send, while traversing the ridges of the Rocky Mountains ! How 

 grand and impressive the scenery presented to their admiring gaze, 

 when from an elevated station they saw the mountain torrent hvirling 

 its foamy waters over the black crags of the rugged ravine, while on 

 wide-spread wings the Great Vulture sailed overhead watching the de- 

 partiu"e of the travellers, that he might feast on the salmon, which in 

 striving to ascend the cataract had been thrown on the stony beach ! 

 Now the weary travellers are resting on the bank of a brawling brook, 

 along which they are delighted to see the lively Dipper frisking wren- 

 like from stone to stone. On the stunted bushes above them some cu- 

 rious Jays are chattering, and as my friends are looking upon the gay 

 and restless birds, they are involuntarily led to extend their gaze to the 

 green slope beneath the more distant crags, where they spy a mountain 

 sheep, watching the movements of the travellers, as well as those of 

 yon wolves stealing silently toward the fleet-footed animal. Again 

 the pilgrims are in motion ; they wind their pathless way round rocks 

 and fissures ; they have reached the greatest height of the sterile plat- 

 form ; and as they gaze on the valleys whose waters hasten to join 

 the Pacific Ocean, and bid adieu, perhaps for the last time, to the dear 

 friends they have left in the distant east, how intense must be their 



VOL. v. A 



