BIRDS. 



199 



entrance to the park, for there, be- 

 sides being welcomed by tire rich 

 song of a thrush coming from the 

 willow- thickets under our win- 

 dows and hearing the homelike 

 notes of nesting robins, we found 

 a pair of the exquisitely tinted 

 mountain bluebirds, most beautiful 

 of all the lovely bluebirds, actually 

 nesting in an old woodpecker hole 

 in one of the great yellow-pine pil- 

 lars of the hotel. How touching- 

 it seemed that the grand old tree, 

 felled in its might and carried 

 far from its forest home, had 

 brought shelter for the gentle 

 pair, helpless to excavate a nest 

 of their own and otherwise unpro- 

 vided ! A pretty sight the father 

 bluebird made sitting on a beam 

 close to the nest while the mother 

 brooded inside. 



At Many Glaciers nature had 

 made no such kindly provision for 

 the bluebirds, and, as the slen- 

 der young trees around the hotel 

 offered no natural nesting boxes 

 and man had failed to supply the 

 deficiency, a pair seeking the shel- 

 ter and protection of the hotel 

 were sorelj^ put to it. At last, 

 trjing to forget family traditions, 

 they built on a rafter at the end of 

 the piazza, over the heads of the 

 hotel guests promenading back 

 and forth enjoying the Avonderful 

 views of the mountains reflected in 

 the lake. Shy and nervous in such 

 an unnatural position, the gentle 

 birds made a pathetic appeal for 

 hospitality; and how well they 

 would repay it, numbered as they 

 are among the loveliest birds of 

 the West ! 



Photograph by KobL-rt H. RockwL-11. 



Fig. 94. — Mountain bluebird. 



