140 WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PAKK. 



outcropping ledges and stony slopes made a terraced Alpine flower 

 garden, one of the gardens that are among the choicest of all nature's 

 lavish gifts to man; this one, with its maturing seed harvest, pro- 

 viding veritable grain fields for hungry bird and beast. Some of 

 these Alpine terraces were fairly white with the lovely low, wide- 

 smiling Dryas octofetala. In other places the beds of white were 

 spotted with the pink mossy cushions of Silene arniilh. while in 

 still others there were clumps of dwarf sedum, whose dark-red 

 flowers and seed pods contrasting strikingly with their pale green 

 leaves might well attract the attention of furry vegetarians locating 

 granaries, and make good feeding grounds for the Arctic grouse. 

 Under a protecting ledge that faced the morning sun and had a 

 dwarf fir in its doorway, a ptarmigan feather told of safe pleasant 

 liours on the mountain side. Sometimes they choose such places for 

 the nest, it is said; but not a bird could I discover. 



Meanwhile on the opposite mountain, the diminishing figure 

 climbed till it became a hair line on the crest of the bare dome, when, 

 turning my glass to sweep the rocky wall below I caught sight of a 

 mountain goat, with short tail up, walking along the ledges as if he 

 had been disturbed by noises from above and was getting out of the 

 way. Walking along deliberately at first, he finally made a jump 

 and disappeared, not long after which a pack train returning to 

 Many Glaciers also disappeared down the first angle above the zigzag. 



Hoping to discover the ptarmigan above, I climbed on till the 

 glacier-carved walls on the east framed a view out over Swiftcurrent. 

 the Sherburne Lakes, and the open plains beyond, while on the west 

 a sublime view imfoldcd — snow-clad mountain masses with the full 

 sun on them uplifted to the skjr. But there were no ptarmigan. At 

 last, discouraged, I retraced my steps and had gone about halfway 

 down the steejo, stony slope of the mountain when — what was that 

 sound? Listening, I caught it again — the softest possible call of a 

 mother ptarmigan ! There she stood, only a few feet from me, hard 

 to see except when in motion, so well was she disguised by her huffy 

 ground color finely streaked with gray. A round-bodied little grouse 

 Avith a small head, she was surrounded by a brood of downy chicks, 

 evidently just hatched, as their bills still held the sharp projection 

 for pipping the shell. Preoccupied with the task of looking after her 

 little family, as I talked reassuringly to her, she ignored my presence. 

 Nothing must hurry the unaccustomed little feet, nothing must inter- 

 fere with their needed rest. Talking softly she graduallv drew 

 the brood in under her motherly wings and sat there only a few 

 yards from me, half closing one eye in the sun and acting oblivious 

 to all the world. Once the downy head of a chick appeared between 

 the fluffed-out feathers of her breast, and once she preened her win"- 



