10 LH EAS U4 D.U0*BOeNeet BU tis bala 
silver with snow sprinkled on their branches, like a ghostly fairyland, 
extended as far as the eye could reach and over five thousand feet high. 
It was a breath-taking spectale, and a thrill like my first sight of Grand 
Canyon. 
The next evening I witnessed another gigantic Christmas card — 
Mount LeConte, over 6500 feet, in the setting sun with its whole top of 
hemlock and spruce in frosted detail. Through the binoculars it was a 
glorious sight. 
In the mornings I would be awakened by a grand wood thrush chorus 
in the wooded hill just behind my hotel window. So many birds joined that 
there were no pauses between the phrases; they overlapped into a con- 
tinuous, beautiful harmony. This bird was very common and approach- 
able. In a tourist camp next door, along a rushing stream in a little 
group of pines, area about 100 by 50 feet, a sycamore warbler worked and 
sang continuously at whatever time of day I was there. I was able to 
observe him every day and make sure that the white supraorbital line was 
white throughout. There were sycamores along the stream, but he con- 
fined himself to the pines and seemed to be feeding out of last year’s 
cones and along the smaller branches. I saw no female and found no nest. 
I recognized this same song again at Asheville, and this bird also remained 
in the pines. 
Both bronzed and purple grackles have been reported in the park. None 
of those I studied had the unquestionable bronze sheen of the Chicago 
grackles, but to me, observed in various conditions of light and shadow, 
looked blue-purple on the body. Even those I took to be females had the 
bluish-purple cast. 
Of the various flycatchers on my list the Acadian did not appear as 
greenish as the one of our region, but more on the order of our alder. 
The note was the swee-zuk that we associate with the Acadian. No hawks 
were seen by me within the confines of the park; the turkey vulture was 
on several occasions. ° 
Although the park is full of rushing mountain streams there is little 
standing water and shore birds are scarce. A visit to Cade’s Cove, a flat 
cultivated valley containing a tiny bit of buttonbush marsh, added to our 
list red-winged blackbirds, meadowlarks singing the song of the eastern 
species, and bob-whites. On the return trip over mountain roads I saw 
my only ruffed grouse. The wild turkey we missed probably by not getting 
to their grounds early enough. 
A visit to Wear’s Cove on the north border of the park was more 
productive. There along a little grassy slough we saw the solitary sand- 
piper, Wilson’s snipe, and six semipalmated sandpipers, the latter not seen 
in the park by Mr. Stupka in ten years. While studying these with my 
binoculars I was affectionately surrounded by a small flock of pigs that 
studied me with their snouts. 
Mr. Stupka’s keen musical hearing and retentive memory revealed to 
us many birds we would not otherwise have discovered. One afternoon, 
near his residence, at an elevation of about 1400 feet, he heard the call of 
