but of behavior and economy, of song and courtship, and of most that goes to 

 make up the vital interest of a bird. 



So far as the records show, it was Henry W. Carriger who, in June, 1910, 

 found the first occupied nest of the Leucosticte within the limits of the United 

 States. Certainly he was the first to find a nest of the "Sierra Nevada Rosy 

 Finch". This nest was taken on the 22nd of June by Milton S. Ray from under 

 a boulder, one of myriads constituting the great weathered-out rock field which 

 covers the upper slopes of Pyramid Peak (alt. 10,020 ft.), in Eldorado County, 

 and within 150 feet of the top of that mountain. This nest, n/4, now reposes in 

 the cabinets of the Woodland Heights Museum of Analytical Oology. To Mr. 

 Ray's vivid and enthusiastic description' of the exploit there is little to be added 

 save the biographies of the participants. 



The second set of eggs, n/5, now resting in the Thayer Museum, was 

 taken by H. H. Kimball, June 20, 1915, at an elevation of 8900 feet. 2 I am 

 under the impression, also, that Dr. P. B. Moody, of Sand Point, Idaho, has taken 

 eggs of the Hepburn Leucosticte, a related subspecies, in Idaho; but if so, the 

 accounts were obscurely published. 



The lure of the Leuco has always possessed a peculiar fascination for 

 the author since his first encounter with the bird (L. t. hepburni) in 1896 on 

 Wright's Peak, in Washington. In view of this special weakness, he craves 

 pardon for indulging, for once, in a historical resume of his own experience. 



In July, 1900, a nest which could have belonged to no other bird, was 

 found in a peculiarly exposed situation, just below the summit of Wright's Peak 

 (alt. about 9300). The Leuco search was the motif of a few days spent in the 

 high Cascades in 1906, and again in 1907. On the latter occasion an old nest 

 and a nest containing young were found. 



In California in June and July, 1911, a determined search was made 

 along the mountains accessible from our camp at the Cottonwood Lakes; but 

 although the birds were common at altitudes ranging from 11,000 to 14,000 feet, 

 only one location was made during the season, and that one accessible only to 

 the birds. The nest, whose existence was attested by visits of the male bird, 

 was placed out of reach in a horizontal crevice, thirty feet over on a cliff which 

 overlooks Army Pass, and which is sheer three hundred feet in height. By dint 

 of going over the brink some fifty feet further west, I succeeded in worming my 

 way, face down, along a ledge to the entrance of the crevice. It proved to be 

 narrow, crooked, and altogether impossible — whereat I spat, reflectively, 270 

 feet, and wished I had never come. 



On the 21st of July, 1913, while in company with a dozen fellow members 

 of the Sierra Club, engaged in scaling the North Palisade Peak (alt. 14,254), 

 I came upon a nest containing five young about three days old. The nest was 

 set well back in a cranny, which fronted a sheer drop of some two hundred feet, 

 and it must have been within six hundred or seven hundred feet of the summit, 

 say at an elevation of 13,600. This was, apparently, the second California 

 record. 



In June, 1919, the field party maintained by the Museum of Comparative 

 Oology made headquarters in the throat of Mammoth Pass in Mono County, 

 at an elevation of 8500 feet. From this camp as a base we made several visits 

 to the higher altitudes of the southerly-lying ranges, and spent eight nights in 

 desultory camps made on rock ledges or rocky moraines. The following ac- 

 count, beginning on June 18, 1919, summarizes our experiences and fortunes. 



It looked terribly steep, that north-facing snow field which led down 

 from the Mammoth Crest, but the westering sun, backed by a searching wind, urged 

 a quick retreat to camp four miles away and 2500 feet below. The snow-field 

 reached the very top of the ridge, choking the throat of a couloir and expanding 

 below between massive cliffs several hundred feet high. The left flanking cliff 

 was dark in shadow, but the east-flanking wall was still bathed in sunlight. 

 There might be Leucos down there; and a slide would save miles of walking. 



The Condor, Vol. XII., Sept., 1910, pp. 147-101. 

 John E. Thayer, in epist., Aug. 5, 1919. 



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