1Y4 'P r'"-M\^ILD ^^Tiff^i^^aF' GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



often that tlio gray border made a good field character, and now and 

 then a deeply notched tail or a bright pink wing patch showed 

 clearly. Back and forth across the trail they flew, now hunting over 

 the grassy flower-strewn ground, now examining the dwarf firs, and 

 now hunting over the great snowbank on the side of Piegan Moun- 

 tain. 



On Kootenai Pass leucostictes were also found, but of all the rare 

 summits on which these birds of the peaks were seen perhaps the 

 best was in the Boundary ]\Iountains. A family of five Avere flushed 

 here from a ridge whose summit was crowned by a monument mark- 

 ing the International Boundary, and near which a green swath 

 through the forest divided British Columbia and Alberta. Here, 

 where the mountains of the park reach their culminating grandeur, 

 lofty peaks and ranges are gathered in such close conclave as to 

 suggest a council of chiefs from north, south, east, and west. The 

 broad seamed face of Agassiz glacier, the rough cascaded front of 

 Kintla Glacier, with Kintla Peak towering 4,000 feet above its lake ; 

 snow patches, glaciers, looming peaks, ridge close behind ridge, and 

 below, a mantle of dark timber — such was the chosen home of 

 Leucosticte. 



Hardy mountaineers, in spring while the mountain tops are still 

 buried under snow, thej- may be found in the low mountain valleys ; 

 but in late fall they have been found high up in the mountains, and 

 seen in the valleys only in the worst snowstorms. 



Eedpoll: Acanth/s linaria Unana. — A specimen of this redpoll 

 with crimson crown, black chin, and streaked body was given us by 

 ]SIr. Bryant, who said that in the spring one would think the Flat- 

 head Eiver the main avenue of travel north for the j uncos and red- 

 polls of all Xorth America. JNIr. Gibb has seen redpolls in the park 

 in winter. 



From Stanton Lake, in the winter of 1900, ]\Ir. Pligginson wrote : 

 " Toward the beginning of February we began to hear these bright 

 little songsters, sounding for all the world like a canary, singing away 

 on the border of the lake. Just across from the cabin was a little 

 thicket of alder bushes, and in this thicket the redpolls could almost 

 always be found. They fed on the buds of this bush and there they 

 would hang half the time head down stuffing themselves full, and 

 only stopping every now and then to sing." As Ihe lake is only 

 about two miles fi'om the pai'k, the birds might easilj' stray across 

 the boi'der. 



Pine Siskin : SplnitH p/iiiif; iiimin. — One of the notes most fre- 

 <juently heard in the higher parts of the park is the wild s])lit note 

 (,f the little siskin, the brown-striped cousin of the goldfinch, whicli, 



