Nov., 1910 
BIRD NOTES FROM SOUTHWESTERN MONTANA 
197 
cited and often approach! very close to me, calling loudly and nervously pecking at 
branches of the tree, and breaking off and throwing down fir needles. On one 
occasion I took my camera up the tree and attempted to take pictures of the old 
birds, but because of the swaying of the tree and the difficulty of focusing, the re- 
sults were not good. Later, under similar conditions I obtained some fairly suc- 
cessful pictures of Magpies. 
On the evening after our arrival at the Pipestone camp, I heard, coming from 
the marshy portion of the basin, the wierd wing-music of a male Wilson Snipe 
( Gallinago delicata ) and shortly afterward the call of the female bird. Every 
evening after that till we left the camp, the male snipe went thru his performance, 
circling high in the air and emitting at intervals the curious, whining crescendo 
notes, which are often answered from the marsh by a long call from the female. 
This call, which is common to both sexes, has been described as rail-like, but it 
struck me, while listening to it, that it was almost the exact counterpart of the call 
of the domestic guinea fowl. 
On the evening of June 11, I 
went down toward the marsh to 
watch the performance from a near- 
er distance, and to attempt to locate 
the nest. From a previous experi- 
ence with these birds I believed 
that the female at such times calls 
from the immediate vicinity of the 
nest, if not when actually sitting- 
on it. I followed the direction of 
her voice out into the marsh and 
finally flusht her some forty or 
fifty feet ahed of me. It was get- 
ting too dark to hunt nests, so I 
markt the spot and went back to 
camp. The next morning I re- 
turned to the spot and soon flusht 
the male snipe some distance ahed 
of me. Supposing it was the fe- 
male, I searcht for a nest where he 
rose but found nothing and was 65- nest and eggs of pieeoeated warbler 
about to give it up when the female 
rose almost at my feet. Even then it took some search to see the nest and 
three eggs. As a nest of this species, found the previous year, had hatcht on 
June 12 I supposed that these eggs were nearly redy to hatch. When I returned 
with my camera, however, the bird would not sit closely and I got only a picture 
of the nest and eggs. Two days later I visited the nest again thinking the eggs 
might be hatcht, but insted I found them cold and deserted. Incubation was not 
so advanced as I had supposed, in fact had barely begun. My presence with the 
camera had evidently been too much for the bird at that early stage. 
Except during the evenings, I found but little time to search this promising 
territory. One evening, while exploring the willow thicket at the npper end of 
the basin, I found a beautiful nest of the Pileolated Warbler ( Wilso/iia pus/lla fil- 
eolata ) . The nest was placed on the ground in a mossy hollow under the roots of 
a clump of willows. It contained five eggs. The sitting bird could be plainly 
seen from one side and allowed me to approach to about three feet before she left. 
