172 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XIV 
The spring weather continued mild and trains were run on mountain routes 
and stock was turned out to pasture, around the lake, long before the customary 
time. In fact everything now pointed to an unusually early summer. Littlejohn 
was the first of our party to visit the Tahoe region, reaching the Lake at the end 
of April. While the purix)se of his trip was more particularly to study Tahoe’s 
water-bird-life, nevertheless he kept a sharp lookout for Pine Gro.sbeaks as we 
were especially interested to know whether they occurred in Lake Valley at this 
season. If they could be found at this altitude (6220 feet) it would be conclusive 
evidence that, having to migrate to higher elevations to nest, the birds could 
scarcely do so before May 15 or later. 
While Littlejohn secured some very interesting specimens and notes on 
spring migration no trace of Pine Grosbeaks was found. During his stay, which 
was until the first week in IMay, storms of hail, sleet or snow prevailed almost 
continually, and while of course at this altitude the late snow quickly melted, this 
change in weather conditions greatly retarded the nesting time of Sierran bird- 
life. 
The writer reached Bijou, Lake Tahoe, our 1912 base, on May 19, in time, 
should the season be early, to still reach the Pyramid Peak region at a’ proper date. 
En route to Bijou conditions everywhere showed it to be a year of unusually 
light snowfall. The afternoon I arrived was stormy and light snow began fall- 
ing and continued intermittently for three days, making field work very disagree- 
able. Two days alxiut Bijou convinced me that notwithstanding the mild winter 
the avian nesting time would not differ greatly from that of 1911, a year of ex- 
tremely heavy snow-fall. To find exactly what this difference would be, how- 
ever, required considerable further field-work. By the 25th of May I felt sure of 
the late seasonal conditions and immediately wrote Heinemann and Littlejohn to 
change the date of their arrival from May 28 to June 8. 
Pleinemann arrived on the above date and Littlejohn the day following. As 
our pack burro had already been brought up two .weeks previously from Carson 
Valley, Nevada, there was nothing to delay our departure. We left Bijou at ten 
o’clock on the morning of June 11 and if the picture taken before we started 
shows .some new innovations in loading a burro the credit must be given to Little- 
john. Although the day was very sultry and the road the greater part of the 
way led through heavy granite sand, our burro, a very willing animal, led by a 
rope, followed us without urging. Meyer’s Station, at the foot of the stage-road 
summit was made at 1 :26 p. m. Here we fell in with McMillan, a forest ranger 
who very kindly helped us to rearrange the entire pack and also initiated us into 
the use of the almost indispensable “basco hitch” in roping it on. Meyer’s was 
left at 3 p. M. 
On the way to Phillips’ Station we noted a number of the rarer forms of 
alpine bird life, as well as several interesting ne.sts with eggs, and near Deering- 
ton’s I saw the first California Pine Grosbeak of the year as it flew from a tall fir 
by the roadside into a distant maze of foliage. 
We felt, with the occurrence of this bird on our first day out, that the trip 
had started auspiciously : but when, sometime later at Phillips’ Station, we saw 
three of the birds alight but a few feet from us, on a large and brightly colored 
umbrella that shaded the seat of a mountain lumber wagon it almost took our 
breath away. The birds staid but a few moments, however, and before a gun 
could be brought they had winged their way across the meadows to the thick 
timber of a neighboring canon. Needless to say our now famous “flock” of 
