Jan., 1919 THE SOLITAIRES OF SHASTA 17

snow. I set to work in good earnest examining the bases, and had accomplished nothing in an hour's work, so sat down on a rock for a cold bit9 of lunch, de- ternlined to see if I could get any lead. I did see a bird flit about 75 yards up the hill, but it disappeared against, or behind, a tree bole and I saw nothing more of it. These birds have a marvelous way of slipping around unobserved. The next 1 knew a male was singing overhead 125 feet up. By and by I had the rare pleasure of seeing and hearing the ecstatic song flight of the male. From  height well above the treetops and 300 feet above the earth, he descended, slowly, in a great spiral, with fluttering wings. More than ever he looked like a Mock- ingbird, except that his action did not savor of'the grotesque. The song torrent was light and sprightly in character, reminding me more of the breathless rhap- sody of the Lark Sparrow than of the measured accents of the Thrush. This Fig. 3. NEST Ar) COOS OF Tow-scr, SOLITAIRE; V149/3-16. exercise over, the bird descended through the trees and allowed himself to be seen on several occasions in an open bit about a hundred yards down the hill. Several times he visited the ground, and twice I saw another bird of the same species get up. Once there was quite a spirited passage, a bug and a hug as near as I could make out, after which the myste?ious second bird disappeared by a dive to earth. I'm on to their game this time, I guess. With quaire a complacent feeling I worked my way down to the scene after htnch. In my confidence I even stopped lo take off my sopping boots and dry them, preparatory to "landing" the nest. The male improved the occasion by betraying his anxiety in various ways--first by little sotto voce snatches of song ntended for tile ear of the sitzing female, and then by that weird pendulum creak, whose qualities I have so often remarked. This sound is really indescrib- able, yet it invites renewed effort at comparison. It has been called a "bell