70 THE CONDOR Vol. XX 



west and the red farm buildings glowed a keen red, the fence posts standing 

 as bars of gold. Over the fields the projected shadows of the buildings made 

 irregular domes of cold green across the sunlit yellow green of the young 

 wheat fields. On a July night a thunder storm at supper time made an ob- 

 scured sunset, but when the heavy rain fell from the sky, the darkness lightened 

 and an unusual color effect was given the landscape. The squares of plowed 

 ground stood out black against the intense vivid green of the grain fields. It 

 was at once a repressed but illuminated sunset, the light apparently being re- 

 flected from the clouds. 



After trying east winds, electric storms, and unprecedented rains, near 

 the middle of July the wind veered to the northwest giving us one of the per- 

 fect, heavenly prairie days with serene blue sky, ever shifting cloud forms, and 

 a caressingly soft prairie breeze that brought the sweet breath of new-mown 

 hay. As I watched the ever-changing white forms in the sky, I wished that a 

 moving picture film might be taken of clouds on the prairie. Now a row of 

 pointed caps marked the east, now small irregular cloudlets floated along the 

 southern horizon ; then cumulus masses formed but to dissolve, while far-flung 

 exultant clouds held the eye in the high sky. Bands of light illumined the 

 wheat fields, and from a fence post a Vesper Sparrow sang his uplifted song, 

 in rare harmony with it all. 



(To be continued) 



SIX WEEKS IN THE HIGH SIERRAS IN NESTING TIME 



By MILTON S. RAY 



WITH FOUR PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR 



BY RETURNING for a number of years to the same localities in the Tahoe 

 region I have had opportunity to note the variations in its bird-life from 

 year to year, both in abundance and variety. Almost every season I have 

 added new birds to the Lake Valley list, though each year, too, I have failed to 

 record certain birds present the previous seasons. 



The winter of 1911 had been one of very heavy snowfall, and while en route 

 from Truckee to Lake Tahoe on the thirteenth of May the train track led the en- 

 tire distance through snow, in places as deep as twelve feet. Willows and aspens 

 along the roaring streams showed as yet no signs of leaf. Notwithstanding this 

 wintry outlook, I noticed a newly completed nest of the Water Ouzel (Cinclus 

 mexicanus unicolor) on the top of a large boulder in the middle of the Truckee 

 River near Deer Park Station, while nearer Lake Tahoe I noted numerous Am- 

 erican Mergansers (Merganser americanus) in pairs flying up stream. 



Snow, three to twelve feet deep, running down to the water's edge, covered 

 the western shores of Lake Tahoe everywhere along the route to Bijou, where I 

 arrived at 1 :45 p. m. in time for a short tramp afield. I saw the Audubon Warb- 

 ler (Dendroica auduboni auduboni), Calliope Hummingbird (Stellula calliope) 

 and seven other species in the winter-like solitudes, before a blinding snow-storm 



