14 THE CONDOR Vol. XIX 



in the forenoon of one of those bright, exquisite days of early spring at Lake 

 Tahoe, when the warring elements had declared a truce and were at rest for a 

 time. The little shadowy canyon wherein I rested enjoyed a hushed and sol- 

 emn tranquility not diminished, but rather added to, by a drowsy murmuring 

 from a bright brook splashing on its way to the lake. This, I thought, could 

 be none other than the haunt of a Solitaire, and I wished that I might see the 

 bird; and as in answer to my prayer came one, a small gray ghost of a bird that 

 flitted silently in and out the leafy corridors of its retreat, finally resting on 

 the limb of a pine not ten feet away. And as I watched, the feathers of his 

 breast and throat rose with a song that softly echoed the beautiful voices of 

 the brook, the gurgling of eddies, the silvery tinkle of tiny cascades, and the 

 deeper medley of miniature falls. Infinitely fine and sweet was this render- 

 ing of mountain music. At times the song of the bird rose above the sound of 

 the water in rippling cadences not shrill, but in an infinite number of runs and 

 modulated trills, dying away again and again to low plaintive whispering notes 

 suggestive of tender memories. I know of no bird song with which it can be 

 compared except that of the "Water Ousel. But the song of the Ousel is sung 

 to the accompaniment of wilder waters; nothing less than the raging thunder- 

 ing cataracts of larger streams will do for him. 



Another memorable occasion was at daybreak, after an interminable night 

 without blankets at a high altitude. The great summit peaks of the Sierras, 

 distinct against the western sky, had just begun to glow with the first delicate 

 rose-tints of the dawn, while the forest mantling their granite flanks stood 

 misty and somber and still above dead banks of snow. Suddenly, breaking the 

 silence, came faintly the notes of a Solitaire, growing stronger with the light 

 like the first low tentative laughter of a little alpine streamlet set free from 

 ice. The same sweet notes that I remembered, clear as the drip from icicles, as 

 spontaneous as the songs of mountain streams. 



Sunny open glades in the woods, rather than the more secure shelter of 

 dense forests, are usually selected by the Townsend Solitaire (Myadestes town- 

 sendi) for nesting purposes. Five nests which I have examined were thus sit- 

 uated in open or thinly forested areas surrounded by very dense woods, and 

 were found more by accident than design, the birds flushing as I passed by. 

 Their behavior when thus disturbed is in harmony with their quiet disposition ; 

 by their actions they show a tender solicitude, but not one of the five pairs of 

 birds, when I was in the vicinity of their nests, uttered a single note of com- 

 plaint or acted as if in great distress or fear. 



The data of these nests are as follows : About the. first of June, 1905, I was 

 exploring a ridge above the Feather River in Plumas County, at 4000 feet alti- 

 tude, when a Solitaire flew from behind a charred stub. This, on examination 

 was found to be partly burnt out, forming a semi-circular cavity. Within this 

 shelter a depression had evidently been scratched in the ground, in which was 

 a great loose mass of pine needles, the interior being lined with dry grass stems. 

 The nest contained four fresh eggs. 



Again on June 10, 1908, at Fyffe, 3700 feet altitude, a nest was found eigh- 

 teen inches up in a crevice of a charred oak log in the open forest. In construc- 

 tion it was about like the first nest, the bulk of the material being pine needles, 

 the lining of grass stems. The contents were four half fledged young. July 

 9th of the same year another nest was discovered, in a peculiar situation on a 

 small ledge of rock projecting from a high cliff, in Franktown Creek Canyon, 



