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ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM THE WEST. 349 
_ purple finches, and the song sparrow was occasional, being more 
_ tumerous here than elsewhere on our journey. 
The vicinity of mount Lincoln was by far the most interesting 
locality we visited, where we spent a week in a hasty ornithologi- 
cal reconnoissance of the immediate region, our excursions extend- 
ing from about twelve thousand five hundred feet above sea-level 
tothe top of Mt. Lincoln, whose bald summit rises to nearly a 
thousand feet above timber line. About thirty-five species were 
found ranging up to or above the limit of trees, the most of which 
were tolerably common. The hermit thrush, Audubon’s warbler, 
the mountain and black capped chickadees, the ruby-crowned 
kinglet, the chipping and Lincoln’s sparrows, the red-shafted, 
hairy, three-toed and yellow-bellied woodpeckers, the arctic blue- 
, the Canada and great-crested jays and the pine finch 
Were all more or less common up to the forest line. The robin, a 
common bird throughout this portion of the mountains, was met 
with far above the timber line, and its nest was found within a 
few hundred feet of the tree limit. The spotted sandpiper and 
the American ouzel were both seen up to the very source of the 
Tih Platte, and a nest of the former found at Montgomery, 
thirteen thousand feet above the sea. The rock wren was seen 
mong the taluses above timber line, and the purple finch was a 
Tion bird at Montgomery. The bay-winged, the savanna and 
White-crowned sparrows and the chestnut-backed snowbird were | 
all observed for a considerable distance above the tree limit. 
The white crowned and Lincoln’s finches are eminently birds of 
gher regions, as above ten thousand feet they appear to tad 
mmber all the other sparrows together. The broad-tailed humming 
a ady mentioned, continued common to far above — 
“a being as much at home among the bright flowers growing on 
highest parts of the mountains as in the valleys. The barn, 
ý and white bellied swallows were also more or less abundant 
sig same elevation, but breed of course only lower down 1n 
ex Moir zone. None of the smaller birds were — a | és 
ag perhaps the two sparrows already mentioned, than lowes 
; black-capped flycatching warbler, which was more conspicu- 
"h - not absolutely more numerous, among thé dwarfed willows 
T birches above timber line than at lower points, scolding the 
oe from almost every bush heap; this little bird being grer 
ly an alpine species. Among the snow fields of the higher 
