The Mountain Bluebird. 



263 



chosen the uppermost of three abandoned woodpecker 

 holes, and, at the time I found them, were quite busy 

 carrying food to their nesthngs. While thus employed, 

 I secured several photographs, one of which is reproduced 

 with this article. In my experience the Mountain Blue- 

 birds are a little shyer than other bluebirds. As soon as 

 one approaches their nest, they alight near by, fly ner- 

 vously from perch to perch, and utter a plaintive call note 

 which resembles that of the Western Bluebird. 



There is a great scarcity of information regarding the 

 song of the Mountain Bluebird. Members of the Sierra 

 Club may contribute something on this point by their 

 observ^ations. Minot, in the Bulletin of the Nuttall Or- 

 nithological Club (Vol. V, page 225), describes its song 

 notes as less plaintive, deeper in tone, and uttered with 

 a richer warble than that of the ordinary bluebird. Other 

 observers describe the bird as markedly silent, or omit all 

 reference to its notes and song. 



Robert Ridgway, in his report on the Ornithology of 

 the Fortieth Parallel (1877) calls attention, in the case 

 of the Mountain Bluebird, to what he describes as a 

 change of habits due to spreading civilization. He found 

 these bluebirds nesting numerously about buildings at 

 Salt Lake City. Had the site of the city remained in its 

 primitive, unreclaimed state, he says, the birds would un- 

 doubtedly have been found there only during their ver- 

 tical migrations, influenced by changes of climate. As 

 Mr. Joseph Grinnell observed, in a conversation with the 

 v/riter, this is not strictly to be described as a change of 

 habits. In taking to buildings, bird-houses, or mail- 

 boxes* for a choice of nesting sites, they still are essen- 

 tially exercising the habit of selecting the comforts pro- 

 vided by hollow trees, woodpecker holes, or crevices 

 among rocks. Cliff-swallows, Swifts, and some Wrens 

 have been doing the same thing. It is noteworthy, how- 

 ever, as Mr. Ridgway points out, that the availability 



* Condor, Vol. XIV, No. 3, 



