188 
ORDERS OF BIRDS— PERCHERS AND SINGERS 
November, on the strip of ice which fringed the 
edge of the roaring, swirling, icy-cold water which 
plunges into the Shoshone Canyon at the forks 
of the Shoshone River. Man or beast stepping 
into that foaming torrent would have been 
crushed against the rocks, and drowned at the 
same moment, — two deaths in one. In that 
grim and terrible solitude, fast in the embrace 
of early winter, we saw on the snow-white brink 
of the ice-bank a tiny dark object, which closer 
inspection revealed to be a bird. It looked like 
a large gray wren. 
As we paused to regard it, it blithely flew 
down into mid-stream, and dived head foremost 
into a chilly wave that ran ten miles an hour. 
An instant later it reappeared, all unruffled and 
unwet, blithely flew back to the edge of the ice, 
and alighted once more. Then we knew well 
what it was; for it could be nothing else than the 
Water-Ouzel. Afterward, we saw others along 
the line of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway 
where it winds its way through the Rocky Moun- 
tains. Where the walls of the Royal Gorge al- 
most crowd the train into the Arkansas River 
is a good place to watch for them. 
This bird is a diving thrush! Nature has 
fitted it to dive boldly into the coldest and most 
turbulent water, or through a water-fall, and 
even to walk on the bottom of a still pool, with- 
out being at all disturbed. Both in form and 
size this little creature is like a large wren, but 
it is so peculiar it occupies a genus quite alone. 
Of course it is not web-footed; and in appear- 
ance it exhibits not one feature suggestive of a 
semi-aquatic life. Its home is along the foam- 
ing torrents of the Rocky Mountains, and Sierra 
Nevadas, from Alaska to Guatemala. It nests 
close beside swift-running streams, sometimes 
beside or even behind a cascade. It is known 
that this strange bird gives forth a song both 
clear and sweet, but I have never seen one else- 
where than near a roaring torrent, where no or- 
dinary bird-song could be heard. 
THE WARBLER FAMILY. 
Mniotiltidae. 
From the middle of April to the middle of 
September, the woods and thickets of the north- 
ern states are inhabited by a very considerable 
number of tiny bird-forms. They are trim- 
built little creatures, quiet and business-like, 
and they take themselves very seriously. A 
few of them are clad in refined shades of yellow, 
but — most fortunately — the great majority wear 
dull olive, gray or brown colors, and thereby 
escape the hostile attention that bright plumage 
always attracts. 
These are the warblers, grand in the destruc- 
tion of insects, but the most elusive and difficult 
little creatures with which bird-students have to 
deal. 
The difficulty lies in studying them effectively 
without killing them. As for myself, I have not 
yet seen the day wherein I could find myself 
willing to slaughter from five hundred to a thou- 
sand of these exquisite little creatures for the sake 
of becoming sufficiently acquainted with them 
to name them when they are dead! I blush 
not in admitting that I have gone half way 
through life knowing less than a score of war- 
blers to the point of naming them, accurately, as 
they fly before me. My exhortation to all young 
people is — do not slaughter birds, of any kind, 
merely to become acquainted with their names. 
Some of the wild flowers can endure that method 
without extermination, but the wild birds and 
mammals cannot. 
