198 WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIEK, NATIONAL PAEK. 



spruce, and a whistled call brought a response of rare unmistakable 

 quality from its parent. And once on the south side of Lake Jo- 

 se2:)liine nn^ ear caught the famous note that holds the rapt sublima- 

 tion of the songs of all the thrushes. It was only given twice, but 

 that was enough to thrill me with the knowledge that the rare 

 musicians were in the park. 



At the head of Griimell Lake in July, after leaving our saddle 

 horses at a large snowbank, I followed along the shore until I dis- 

 covered a diving golden-eye. While quietly watching her, the voice of 

 a varied thrush was heard, and soon two of the birds flew swiftly 

 clown through the evergreens, so close to me that I could see their 

 brown, collared breasts. Another interval of silence and from the 

 trees almost over my head came the sjolit, vibrant note, later followed 

 by a soft tinkling note as of birds undisturbed in their home. And 

 what an ideal place for Ihe Alaska mountain dweller — on the spruce- 

 clad wall overlooking the milky glacial lake, with the notes of nut- 

 crackers given in passing over from the peaks ! Weeks passed before 

 I was able to return to the home of the varied thrush, but then, on 

 the way back from Gunsight and Piegan Pass, as I rode down into 

 the beautiful secluded gulch beside Grinnell Glacier, the vibrant 

 swelling note caught my waiting ear. Dismounting and answering 

 each call as it came — now the split note and now the Long swelling 

 note — I followed the direction of the sound till I stood at the foot 

 of a noble brotherhood of dark-green, high-pointed spruces, from 

 which the rare song came. On recounting the circumstance to Dr. 

 Grinnell soon after, when he was visiting one of our camps, ho 

 told me that he had found the varied thrushes in that very same 

 gulch, as he remembered, some twenty-six years before, many years 

 before the park ha<l been established ! 



In still another of nature's secluded chambers was the note of the 

 varied thrush heard — in the amphitheater of Iceberg Lake, where 

 the presence of man seemed an intrusion and the sublimed voice of 

 ihe bird in rare harmony. Silenced by the arrival of the horse trains, 

 only one note was given, but a quiet walker who had preceded us said 

 that before we came the thrush had been singing marvelously. 



MocrxTAiN BLTjEniRD : Suilia currucoides. — Like its eastern relative, 

 a l)ii-d of the open, the mountain bluebird, associated with the beauti- 

 ful moinitain parks and meadows of the West, in Glacier Park is 

 found in the open lower margins, such as the region of St. ]\Iary Lake 

 and the North Fork of the Flathead. 



Some of the pleasantest experiences of the summer, which was 

 filled with delightful incidents, were at Glacier Park Hotel, at the 



