BIRDS. 131 



on the west side of the mountains, where many birds unlvnown in 

 other parts of the park may be found. Here, as Mr. Gibb says, " in 

 slow water where there are rushes," as in McGee Meadow, and along 

 Camas, Dutch, and Indian Creeks, and the North Fork of the Flat- 

 head, bittern have been seen and may well be looked for. But just 

 outside the east side of the park, near Browning, in 1895, Mr. Bailey 

 and Mr. Howell heard one pumping. 



Great Blue Heron : Ardeu herodias herodias. — A sight of the 

 great blue heron, like that of the bittern, is one of the rare pleasures 

 offered the leisurely explorer of the park, and one look at the blue 

 figure standing erect on the edge of a lake or suddenly bending low 

 to spear a fish may well become a cherished memory. 



Order PALUDICOLiE: Cranes, Rails, etc. 

 Family GRUID^: Cranes. 



Sandhill Crane: Grus canadensis mexicana. — Notes on the sum- 

 mer occurrence of cranes are now matters of park history. In June, 

 189r), Messrs. Bailey and Howell reported several heard both day and 

 night on June 12, 13, and 14 on the prairies near Midvale; and they 

 added that one pair flew down quite close to camp. In 1899, Mr. 

 Bryant found old nests with eggshells in them on McGee Meadow 

 near -Camas Creek. He also found one in a bog on Whitefish 

 Mountain when hunting clucks. He saw a head with pink on it and 

 then saw the bird fly off. About twenty years ago Mr. Lewis saw two 

 sandhill cranes standing out on the prairie on the North Fork of the 

 Flathead. Not unnaturally, when he first saw tlie tall birds at a dis- 

 tance, he " thought they were people." Mr. Stevenson has been told 

 rather recently of a nest in a marsh in the St. Mary Valley below 

 the i^ark. 



At present the park records are restricted to rare migrants flying 

 over, as tAvo seen by Mr. Gibb in May, 1917, at Sherburne Lake. If it 

 were not too late the protected prairie patches on the edges of the 

 park might still recall these original, fantastic birds whose presence 

 adds so much to any locality: but, associated with the daj^s of the 

 Indians on the plains, they, too, belong to " a vanishing race." 



Family RALLID^: Rails, Coots, etc. 



Soea Rail: Porsana Carolina. — Another delightful bird has been 

 added to the possibilities of the close observer in the park by Mr. 

 Bryant's record of the sora in McGee Meadow, a few miles west of 

 Lake McDonald, and its jubilant descending chromatic scale should 

 be listened for in all suitable marshes. An Indian legend attaches to 

 the sora as one of the birds called crane's back, because it is supposed 

 to adopt the easy method of migrating on the back of the crane. 



