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 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-scr, 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