| Show K Out of Doors in the West Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain Plateau Edited by J. H. Professor of Nature Study in the University of Utah I. The Wonder-Bird of America the Water The Insect Beautiful the j An Eden for Book-Tired Pupils the School Stranger than Fiction the Romance of Insect V. Conserving the Soil the Care and Planting of Forest 1 Four Secrets of the Hills Nests of Utah Song A Real Who of lis would suppose that we have right here in the Rocky Mountain West the of America one of the most remarkable of earth's living Yet this is and while we may read of the lyre-bird of the bird of paradise of New or the albatross of the wide it is pleasant to know that almost at our doors is a and musical winged creature a very wizard in turning his powers to almost every form of bird of song or or of gymnastics in on or in This typical so alert and is the one at who escapes the taunt which foreigners are wont to fling at the peculiar genius of our race that we are jacks of all trades and masters of none for our western wonder-bird is a master in the several vocations of bird and he has no parallel or This is the water or dipper of the Rocky mountain 1 ouzel is a bird not found elsewhere on this being peculiar to Rocky mountain It in the only member of the dipper family in North there is but one species in Europe and another in South Where the Ouzel This bird may be I about every mountain that has falls since there only will he erect his oven-like The cascade is his and he forages up and down the never leaving the meandering never being seen to alight in although he has the claws of a perching For hours 1 have watched him at his curious v teetering on the rocks in the middle of some dashing 1 canyon diving under the water and searching the lichens and algae of the submerged rocks for his favorite As far as I could this bird's food appeared to comprise both insects and he swims al- though not all and dives although nothing like a duck as to his structure or i Swims with Since his feet could not enable him to propel himself while diving under the water he must use his wings for this purpose j and he uses them with great either against or with the which he sometimes allows to carry him down stream to a point selected for further But he is so as he dips and bathes and wades and plunges and Even when the water is not he dives to the where most of his choice food is not hesitating to go down 15 to 20 it is to obtain the he is Stays Here All i The dipper is an extremely hardy whom no however can for in the midst of it he sings most cheerfully defying all the gods of the While even the hardy nuthatches will move about with fluffed-up the very picture of dejection in cold the dipper still t preserves his cheerful and seems to be while snowflakes that this the jolliest he ever In far where the glaciers hold perpetual this bird has been seen in the month of glad and blithesome as were his comrades in the summery gorges of New It fol- leave their nt that th- but are n Mr and fh- th- creams are the under swim down stream ha n clear in- W in one pook were frozen over and iced of the streams and w al-n the edges b a caught n th- Bailey's ear was following up stream he cake of ice in the bright sun a bobolink in Bailey an gaily a The the the The wat-r or has a than the slender and ing with two tail than the of twelve rounded feathers by tarsus without claws Whole in nearly uniform slate a trifle lighter head and neck faintly tinged with In the feathers of lb wing and parts are lightly tipped with as if flecked by the falling snow a device of nature the more nearly to conform the bird to a resemblance of it winter The mossy nest contains from 3 to 6 white and is built among near running often behind a It is a 0 of Um of western birds the oven-shaped and in order to keep is open only on the Loves the Th singularly and little fellow is f dad in T a waterproof h of with a tinge of chocolate on hc bead form be is about plump d M been S a the flowing of his body b in J only feet wing-tips and the up-slanted wren-like we might almost from John Muir's Words kindred spirit with his this ouzel has a sow do both love the Muir all the countless waterfalls I have visited in the co J exploration in the whether of ten years' aja the ice peaks or warm or in the Yosemite canyons of the middle not one Nests and Eggs of three Rocky Mountain song 1 Long-tailed Black-headed Spurred found without its No canyon is too cold for this little none too provided it is rich in falling Find a or or rushing rapid anywhere upon a clear and there you will surely find its complementary flitting about in the diving in foaming whirling like a leaf among beaten foam-bells ever vigorous and yet self-contained and neither seeking nor shunning your His Charming his great charm is his When men we cold and pitying thinking how cold he must he will suddenly dart light upon a half-submerged rock and break out into a as joyous as is the lark's when she to hail the rising In when other birds are shivering and as in he sings independent alike of sunshine and Muir thinks the bird tones his voice to accord with the ripple of the be it soft or lowest in the late Indian summer the streams are running but rising with the winter's The weather does not matter to hi days and Sundays are the same to on through all the seasons and every kind of The Ouzel Olive Thorne Miller's testimony accords with John arose again that strange at the same instant my eye fell upon a tiny with the water and perhaps six inches on J stood a small fellow-creature in great He was engaged in what I should call that bending his leg-joint and dropping plump little body for a then bobbing up to his fullest height and repeating the constantly looking eagerly out over the water while evidently expecting This was undoubtedly the bird's manner of begging for food a very pretty and well-bred vastly superior to the impetuous calls and demands of some young The movement was of and he was the or ouzel that had been cradled in fountain-dashed nest by the Again he suddenly burst out with the strange call I had It was clearly a cry of of for out of the upon the ledge beside scrambled at that moment a grown up He gave one poke into the wide open mouth of then slipped back into the dropped down a foot or climbed out upon another little shelf in the and in a moment the song Like a Water bird began by mounting of these rounded stones and thrusting her head under the water up to her Holding it there for a few apparently looking for she then jumped in where the turmoil was picked an object from the returning to the gave it to the The Water or Dipper Bird the Wonder- Bird of Western Notice the nest in the with bird coming she threw herself into the let it carry her like a a foot or she intently on the Ihen simply up out of it on to a I could see that lier plumage was not in the least drop or two often rested on her back when she came but it rolled off in a She never even shook The food she brought to that eager youngling every few minutes looked like minute doubtless some insect And a times this hard working mother plunged v into the brook where it was ran or walked down half under and stopped on the very of the lower where one would think she could not even much less turn back and run up which she freely This looked to me almost as difficult as for a man to stand on the brink of with the water roaring and tumbling around Now and then the bird ran or flew against the cur- and under so that I could see her only as a dark colored moving and then came out all fresh and dry beside the with a mouthful of |
