100 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMElSlOAN BIRDS. 



be thrown without striking anything on its way till it reaches the water, fully 

 2,000 feet below. It is said to be some 1,800 feet deep, and in places is prob- 

 ably more. One can not realize the magnitude of this hole in the ground with- 

 out seeing it. A mountain the size of Mount Washington, the highest peak of the 

 White Mountains, in New Hampshire, might be dumped into it and not fill it up 

 then. The water is beautifully clear and deep azure blue in color; the only 

 living thing seen near it on a visit to the lake on July 27, 1882, was a solitary 

 female Wandering Tatler (Heteractitis incanus), apparently very correctly named. 

 An island, covered with good-sized trees, rises out of the water to a height of 

 nearly a thousand feet, on the west side of the lake. It is composed mostly of 

 volcanic scoriae and pumice, and evidently was the principal cone of the now 

 extinct crater, traces of whose activity in former times, in the shape of heavy 

 pumice deposits, can be found for 50 miles inland to the east, on the road from 

 the Deschutes River to Fort Klamath. There is only one place from which the 

 shore of the lake can be reached with comparative safety, and even from there 

 it is by no means an easy matter." 



Mr. Gale, who is quite famiHar with this species, writes me that in Colorado 

 they nest sometimes at an altitude of 10,000 feet, and that they are generally 

 distributed between that limit and 8,000 feet. The nesting sites, he says, are as 

 often met with in moderately thick woods as in the more open clearings and 

 isolated pine trees and shrubs, the only condition guiding their choice of a home 

 being a shelter from the strong west winds. My own observations agree pretty 

 well with his. He says: "A marked peculiarity I have noted with Sphyrapicus 

 thyroideus is that the male takes a lookout station upon some suitable tree, where, 

 at the approach of any possible danger, he gives the alarm by striking a short 

 dry limb with his bill, by which a peculiar vibrating sound is given out, which 

 the female, not very distant, fully understands, and is at once on tlie alert. If 

 either excavating, guarding, or covering her eggs, she will immediately look 

 out of her burrow, and, should the intrudei-'s path lie in the direction of her 

 nest, she will silently slip away and alight in a tree some distance off, but 

 in view of both her nest and the intruder. The first or second blow of a 

 hatchet upon the tree trunk in which the nest is excavated will mark her move- 

 ment again by a short flight, so managed as not to increase the distance — in 

 fact oftener coming nearer. When satisfied that her treasures have been dis- 

 covered, she utters a peculiar, low, grating sound, not unlike the purring of a 

 cat. The male then comes to the fore and braving the danger,- is very courageous, 

 and, should the eggs be far advanced in incubation, he will even enter the 

 nest when you are almost within reach of it. When the latter is rifled, he is 

 always the first to go in and discover the fact, often passing in and out several 

 times in a surprised sort of manner. The large, gaping opening made by 

 the robber's hatchet he seems to ignore altogether. To him it seems impos- 

 sible that a few minutes only suffices to cut through the wall of wood that took 

 his mate as many days of hard labor to accomplish. Presently he is joined by 

 the female, a joint inspection is made, a verdict of grand larceny quickly reached, 



