The Dawson Leuco 



taken by H. H. Kimball, June 20, 1915, at an elevation of 8900 feet. 1 I am 

 under the impression, also, that Dr. P. B. Moody, of Sand Point, Idaho, 

 has taken eggs of the Hepburn Leucosticte, a related subspecies, in Idaho; 

 but if so, the accounts were obscurely published. 



The lure of the Leuco has always possessed a peculiar fascination 

 for the author since his first encounter with the bird (L. t. hepburni), in 

 1896 on Wright's Peak, in Washington. In view of this special weakness, 

 he craves pardon for indulging for once in a historical resume of his own 

 experience. 



In July, 1900, a nest, which could have belonged to no other bird, 

 was found in a peculiarly exposed situation, just below the summit of 

 Wright's Peak (alt. about 9300). The Leuco search was the motif of a 

 few days spent in the high Cascades in 1906, and again in 1907. On the 

 latter occasion an old nest and a nest containing young were found. 



In California in June and July, 191 1, a determined search was made 

 along the mountains accessible from our camp at the Cottonwood Lakes; 

 but although the birds were common at altitudes ranging from 11,000 to 

 14,000 feet, only one location was made during the season, and that one 

 accessible only to the birds. The nest, whose existence was attested by 

 visits of the male bird, was placed out of reach in a horizontal crevice, 

 thirty feet over on a cliff which overlooks Army Pass, and which is sheer 

 three hundred feet in height. By dint of going over the brink some fifty 

 feet further west, I succeeded in worming my way, face down, along a 

 ledge to the entrance of the crevice. It proved to be narrow, crooked, and 

 altogether impossible — whereat I spat, reflectively, 270 feet, and wished I 

 had never come. 



On the 21st of July, 1913, while, in company with a dozen fellow mem- 

 bers of the Sierra Club, engaged in scaling the North Palisade Peak (alt. 

 14,254), I came upon a nest containing five young about three days old. 

 The nest was set well back in a cranny, which fronted a sheer drop of some 

 two hundred feet, and it must have been within six hundred or seven 

 hundred feet of the summit, say at an elevation of 13,600. This was, 

 apparently, the second California record. 



In June, 1919, the field party maintained by the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Oology made headquarters in the throat of Mammoth Pass in Mono 

 County, at an elevation of 8500 feet. From this camp as a base we made 

 several visits to the higher altitudes of the southerly-lying ranges, and 

 spent eight nights in desultory camps made on rock ledges or rocky 

 moraines. The following account, beginning on June 18, 1919, sum- 

 marizes our experiences and fortunes. 



It looked terribly steep, that north-facing snow-cliff which led down 



1 John E. Thayer, in epist., Aug. 5, 1919. 

 l62 



