Sept, 1910 DISCOVERY OF NEST AND EGGS OF GRAY-CROWNED LEUCOSTICTE 
149 
ably shorter. The day was intensely warm and the trail, which winds for a num- 
ber of miles up an almost perpendicular cliff, over rocks and boulders and thru 
dense thickets of brush, possesses scarcely a single shade-tree and not a single brook 
for relief of the, tired tramper. As soon as we reacht the edge of the Pyramid 
Peak plateau, however, all the beauty of Sierran woodland was spred out before us. 
Beneath the great trees, shaded from the sun, lay cooling beds of snow, while 
pellucid streams of snow-water, crystal lakes and verdant, but very boggy, meadows 
were encountered in all directions. Here, as on the summit of the stage road, we 
found bird life abundant, and the occurrence of such rarities as the Sierra Crossbill, 
Sierra Sapsucker, Williamson Sapsucker, and California Pine Grosbeak, for a 
second time made the abandonment of the journey to the peak seem more than 
probable. At five o’clock we arrived on the Porni Meadow and encampt for the 
night. The following morning the weather conditions being very favorable we 
decided upon the ascent 
and left camp a little after 
daybreak. At 8,500 feet 
elevation I consumed con 
siderable time endevoring, 
tho ineffectually, to reach 
the nest of an Audubon 
Warbler ( Dendroica audit - 
boni ), placed on the very 
bough-end of a giant fir; 
while Carriger at an alti- 
tude of 8750 feet retaliated 
by spending over an hour, 
climbing to, and excavat- 
ing, the dwelling cavity of 
a Mountain Bluebird(A‘/«//a 
currucoides) , which, situat- 
ed twenty feet up in a dead 
tree trunk was found to 
contain five eggs in a well 
advanced state of incuba- 
tion. On ascending high- 
er, birds grew fewer; Red- 
shafted Flickers ( Colaptes 
cafer col laris), Mountain 
Chickadees ( Penthestes gambeli ) and California Pine Grosbeaks (PI ///cola c. cali- 
fornica) were still met with; but above 9250 feet naught remained but the noisy Clarke 
Nutcracker ( Nucifraga Columbiana) , cawing from among the dreary wind-blown 
hemlocks and dwarf pines that mark the limit of timber. Above us, upspearing 
into the clouds, still towered Pyramid Peak, the home of the Leucosticte. As this 
was an early summer the broad fields of snow were traverst without much difficulty 
and we were soon clambering up over the gigantic mass of huge granit boulders, 
which, piled in chaotic confusion, extend to the apex. This we reacht at 10 a. m.; 
but of the birds we were in search not a single individual had so far been seen. 
Now, from the summit, however, we notist some half-dozen Leucostictes flying 
among the rocks and on the snow-drifts below, on the north and northeast side of 
the peak. Desiring to see if more birds could not be brought to view we started 
several boulders down the mountain side and discharged one of our firearms a 
Fig. 45. HE1NEMANN GETTING BREAKFAST NEAR TAKE 
euciee; ray studying map of the route 
