AMONG THE BIRDS ON MT. WRIGHT 47 



mental ruggedness, and the solitude as of interstellar space 

 were perhaps what took the deepest hold. It seemed as 

 if the old glacier had been there but yesterday. Granite 

 boulders round and smooth like enormous eggs, sat poised 

 on the rocks or lay scattered about. A child's hand 

 could have started some of them thundering down the 

 awful precipices. When the Muir Glacier rose to that 

 height, which of course it did in no very remote past, 

 what an engine for carving and polishing the mountains 

 it must have been. Its moraines at that period — where 

 are they? Probably along the Pacific coast under hun- 

 dreds of fathoms of water. 



Back upon the summit the snow lay deep and swept up 

 in a wide sheet to a sharp inaccessible peak far beyond 

 and above us. The sweet bird voices in this primal soli- 

 tude were such a surprise and so welcome. There was 

 the piercing plaint of the golden-crowned sparrow, the 

 rich warble of Townsend's fox sparrow, and the sweet 

 strain of the small hermit thrush. The rosy finch was 

 there also, hopping upon the snow, and the pipit or titlark 

 soared and sang in the warm lucid air above us. This 

 last song was not much for music, but the hovering flight 

 of the bird above these dizzy heights drew the eye 

 strongly. It circled about joyously calling chip, chip, 

 chip, chip, without change of time or tune. Below it a 

 white ptarmigan rose up and wheeled about, uttering a 

 curious hoarse croaking sound, and dropped back to his 

 mate on the rocks. In keeping with these delicate signs 

 of bird-life were the little pink flowers, a species of moss 

 campion, blooming here and there just below the snow 

 line, and looking to unbotanical eyes like blossoming 

 moss. From the height, Muir Glacier stretched away to 

 the north and soon became a sheet of snow which swept 

 up to the tops of the chain of mountains that hemmed it 

 in. The eastern half of it with its earth tinge looked like 



