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and then I thought of Margaret Nice’s book The Watcher At the 
Nest (Dover, 1967) which I’d been reading during the week. 
She writes as if nest finding ts easy, but ordinarily I’m not 
blessed with her second sight. This time a nest had found us! 
I retraced a few steps and sure encugh—shoulder high tn a tiny 
niche tn the layered shale cliff of the road cut—were four newly 
hatched Solitaire young, all red gaping mouth. I wanted to stay 
and watch them but was afraid I might scare the parent off for 
too long. How I longed for one of the COS camera fiends! 
Solitary Vireos were in the wet stream beds here and there. 
One day tn Spearfish Canyon we listened to a Warbling Vireo 
singing for eleven minutes from the same location in a box 
elder tree and never could see a feather of him despite our most 
strenuous efforts through rocks, water, poison ivy, shale 
heaps etc. 
Our warbler conquests were few: a Yellow in Canyon Lake 
Park; a handsome Audubon’s the day we adventured (with a 
capital A) over a rough, rotted, unmapped fire lane that mean- 
dered over into Wyoming and through all of South Dakota it 
seemed to me; a MacGillivray’s in the streamside thicket behind 
our cabin, and one lone Redstart in Spearfish Canyon. Every 
day the oven bird called sterturously for his mentor, but never 
came out to see if he had come. 
The Western Meadowlark’s call became familiar to us, 
ind every moist thicket along the highways had its Redwings. 
Route 80 in eastern Iowa hadn't had its bank grass cut; Red- 
wings seemed to be breeding tn profusion. (A conservationist in 
‘he State Highway Department?) Hurrah—how ever it came 
bout! Lark Buntings replaced the Redwings as we drove far- 
her west. 
| The lovely Black Headed Grosbeak appeared momentarily 
n Spearfish Canyon, and there were Pine Siskins and Slate- 
Solored Juncos on the well-stocked bird feeders at Pactola 
_odge. The pretty, endemic White Winged Junco was plentiful 
it all elevations, and tame enough that we became well acquain- 
ed. He's much less scary than his eastern Slate-Colored cousin. 
“hipping Sparrows were common but we saw the Song Spar- 
ow only near Roughlock Falls. 
| The monument of the four Presidents on top of Mt. Rush- 
nore was a high point of our trip. The imagination and daring 
of Borglum’s conception, the boldness and strength of the like- 
esses, and the majesty of the setting were most awe inspiring. 
his was the Abraham Lincoln that Carl Sandburg had brought 
o life for me in the page of The War Years. A trip to commune 
vith his brooding spirit in this magnificent forest place makes 
‘fitting pilgrimage for any son of Illinois in this sesquicentennial 
lear, —5626 Dorchester Avenue, Chicago 
