250 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



of black — how they enUven the somber forest soHtudes 

 with their merry ways ! And their more splendid cousins, 

 the ruby-crowned kinglets, are there also! Veritable 

 little kings, with scarlet crowns, olive-green backs, and 

 gray breasts — tiny forest sprites, flitting ever from spray 

 to spray in quest of insect food, or pausing now and 

 again to sing their lovely song. 



And those enchanting mountain meadows, tenanted by 

 blue larkspurs and purple daisies and golden mimulus, 

 where the streaked brown song-sparrow sings as in the 

 valleys at home, and the summer warbler in golden livery 

 utters its joyous lilt! Lovely violet-green swallows are 

 cleaving the air or skimming over the streams, the tan- 

 ager's tzvitch up sounds from the nearby forest, the robin 

 warbles, and the hermit thrush utters its far-away ethereal 

 strains. Ah, the hermit thrush, — soberly attired in olive 

 brown above, brightening to reddish brown on wings and 

 tail, and pale buffy below, spotted with brown, — how its 

 witchery of unearthly tones lingers in the mind, bringing 

 back as by an enchanter's spell, all the delight of the 

 mountain solitudes, the fragrance of the pines, the wonder 

 of leagues of serrated snow-mantled crags, the awful 

 gorge with the peaceful green floor at foot of those 

 stern rock walls! 



Only upon the summit of Cloud's Rest or the higher 

 peaks beyond is that droll hob-goblin of a bird, Clark's 

 crow, to be found. In size about that of a chunky jay, 

 the nut-cracker, as he is called, is one of the most absurd 

 and amusing of all our birds. Fancy him all in gray, 

 with black wings white banded, and white tail with the 

 central feathers black, with long sharp beak, a veritable 

 gray friar on a frolic! Why he chooses to live on such 

 bleak storm-swept heights, where few other birds save 

 the arctic pink-and-chocolate leucostites venture, is more 

 than I can guess. He is a sociable roustabout, and always 

 finds himself in jovial company. A flock of these birds, 

 tame, saucy, irresistible in their antics, hopping over 

 the rocks with head now on one side, now on the other, 



