12 Vol. XXI 
THE SOLITAIRES OF SHASTA* 
By WILLIAM LEON DAWSON 
WITH FIVE PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR 
HENEVER I reeall those two magic weeks spent near timberline on 
\/ \/ Mount Shasta, I cannot be sure which image comes up first, whether the 
chaste menace of the eternal snows which crown the summit, the somber 
forest of the Shasta fir trees which girdles the mountain midway, or the gray 
ghostly shape of a bird which flits and vanishes by turn throughout that haunted 
forest. The snow-cap was a thing apart,—remote, incomparable, birdless; but 
the Shasta Fir (Abies shastensis), and the Townsend Solitaire (Myadestes town- 
sendi) were paired entities, inseparable in the thought of a birdman. If the 
bird had elected to hide his nest in the ample draperies of blackbeard ‘‘moss’’ 
(the lichen, Alectoria fremontr), which clothed and disguised most of the trees, 
there would have been no occasion to write this history. A Ruby-crowned King- 
let, better advised, dared to tease us, daily, with his exulting song, and that right 
on the confines of Hardscramble Camp; for many wasted hours had taught us 
that his secret at least was secure in that mossy paradise. The guileless Soli- 
taires, instead, placed their nests oftenest at the base of some giant of the forest, 
trusting to humility and chance. But if they took chances in the open, they did 
not publish their immediate whereabouts by unguarded song nor by fatuous vis- 
itations. Every nest discovered was the reward of diligent search, or else it was 
a gift, so earnestly desired that it was hailed as good fortune not to be despised 
because it was, for once, gratuitous. 
At the time of our arrival at timberline, July 7, 1916, Solitaires were nest- 
ing, or had nested, at every lower level down to 5000 feet. In the yellow pine belt 
discreetly anxious mothers were supervising the education of hobbledehoys who 
rather resented further attention. But the snows had lingered late that season. 
Moreover, they had been replenished by a heavy and very unseasonable downfall 
ou the first day of the month. The birds which were accustomed to nesting at 
higher levels were crowding the retreating snows in their anxiety to begin the 
nesting season. In all probability many nests had been overwhelmed, so that 
thereafter we were really witnessing a second nesting season. At any rate, the 
birds continued in full song up to the time of our departure, July 19; whereas 
Dr. Merriam, who arrived on Shasta July 15, 1898, saw but six birds, and de- 
clared them to be “‘always silent’’. Silent! Well, perhaps the future distin- 
guished monographer of bears was even then attuning his ears to the music of 
Ursus hoots. 
With this much by way of introduction, and because the writer has a theory 
that bird articles ought to write themselves (if the field work has been attended 
to), he is going to ask the liberty of quoting from his note-books, with only slight 
emendation and rearrangement, and so to present six separate sketches of Soli- 
taires on Shasta. 
V147/2-16 Townsend Solitmre; alt. 7200, July 8: Male heard singing in 
the tree-tops. The bird is evidently shifting about from place to place in a beau- 
tiful fir grove. His song is wierd, eccentric, and unstudied, as refreshing as it 
*Contribution from the Museum of Comparative Oology. 
