feet high, but the upper portion was receding and graduated, by reason of the 

 jointed character of the rock, into a sort of grim staircase. The "steps" them- 

 selves, however, sloped sharply, and it was no small task to get within forty feet 

 of the nest from above. Here the boys set their pikes in a fissure and attached 

 a 150-foot rope, which reached the bottom of the cliff, with ten feet to spare. 

 Down this William presently descended. With a shout he greeted the appearance 

 of the first nest, and with another shout reported that its four eggs were fresh. 

 The nest, it seems, was set in a shallow cranny almost invisible from below, so 

 that the eggs were only four or five inches in, and the skirts of the scanty pile 

 reached the edge. The female had darted off when the rope was cast over, but 

 she returned now and circled the clinging lad with anxious cries. The eggs were 

 put hastily into a box, and the nest went into William's hat, after which he 

 quickly descended a matter of twenty feet, where a tiny ledge afforded temporary 

 respite. Here he managed to pack the eggs securely, to wrap the nest in tissue, 

 and to lower them both to my waiting hands. 



The next site, a little to one side, is much more difficult. A deep recess 

 some twelve feet wide, eight feet high, and from three to six feet deep, has been 

 formed by the recent defection of a great block of schist. The back of this 

 cavity has been rent and shattered as by an explosion. Some of the ragged 

 fragments are ready to tumble at a breath, and the overhang itself looks very 

 unstable. I besought William to arrange his loops for entirely independent 

 action; but he neglected to do so at first, with the result that when he did event- 

 ually cast them, as he was obliged to do, they were not well placed, and one was 

 non-functional. 



It was fortunate that we had seen the exact spot at which the bird had 

 entered, and that I was able to indicate it from below. Peeping in, the boy saw 

 the skirts of a nest set well back and quite unobtainable. The overhang was so 

 great that William had great difficulty in keeping in touch with the situation. 

 There was not sufficient projection from the cliff itself to support his weight 

 entirely, so he struggled with the diverse purposes and functions of rope and 

 knob. Finally, in desperation, he ascended the rope a little and pried frantically 

 with his foot at the most obstructive rock. By alternately bearing down and 

 toeing up he succeeded in dislodging it, and it fell, a hundred-weight, crashing 

 amid a cloud of rock-dust. When the air cleared, the boy beheld a handsome 

 nest now scantily supported, but holding four eggs apparently fresh, "93/4-19 

 Dawson's Leuco". Now to retrieve them! He first tried the use of the box. 

 With a foot on the cliff, hugging in, and the other in the loop of the rope, and 

 with the left arm about the rope and the hand clutching the box, he reached up 

 with the right and had abstracted an egg, when another supporting rock of 

 twenty pounds weight or so let go, bringing the nest down with it. The boy 

 frantically intercepted the nest while the rock placidly lighted on the back of his 

 neck. He succeeded in shaking off the incubus and at the same time holding 

 onto the nest amid the attendant smother of rock-dust. This was, it must be 

 confessed, a rather complicated moment. There was evidently some attendant 

 language, more or less smothered by rocks. Will says he expected to find an 

 omelette in the nest; but he somehow managed to replace the egg which he had 

 clutched in his right hand, and to remove the whole mass, eggs and all, to his hat. 

 This he necessarily gripped in his teeth, and slid thirty feet, to safety, without 

 more ado. 



To his great delight, and mine, he found the eggs absolutely uninjured. 

 Two perfect sets of Leucosticte eggs, worth say $400 "exchange," retrieved on 

 the descent of a single line! There was an exploit to be remembered with pride 

 and gratitude! 



Leaving the boys to recover from their exertions, I cleared, that same 

 afternoon, for a distant prospect which I had named the Grand Cirque, and 

 where an elaborate system of north-facing snow-banks protected by rugged peaks 

 was nursing half a dozen cirque lakes, whose waters eventually find their way 

 into the San Joaquin River. Arrived, toward evening, upon these happy hunt- 

 ing grounds, I first paused to make camp on the upper reaches of the central 



u 



