Page:Condor12(6).djvu/19

Nov., 1910 BIRD NOTES FROM SOUTHWESTERN MONTANA 197 cited and often approacht very close to me, calling loudly and nervously pecking at branches of the tree, and breaking off and throwing down fir needles. On one occasion I took my camera up the tree and attempted to take pictures of the old birds, but because of the swaying of the tree and the difficulty of focusing, the re- sultswere not good. Later, under similar conditions I obtained some fairly suc- cessful pictures of Magpies. On the evening after our arrival at the Pipestone camp, I heard, coming from the marshy portion of the basin, the wierd wing-music of a male Wilson Snipe (?allinago ddicata) and shortly afterward the call of the female bird. Every evening after that till we left the camp, the male snipe went thru his performance, circling high in the air and emitting at intervals the curious, whining crescendo notes, which are often answered from the marsh by a long call from the female. This call. which is common to both sexes, has been described as rail-like, but it struck me, while listening to it, that it was almost the exact counterpart of the call of the domestic guinea fowl. On .the evening of June 11, I went down toward the marsh to watch the performance from a near- er distance, and to attempt to locate the nest. From a previous experi- ence with these birds I believed that the female at such times calls from the immediate vicinity of the nest, if not when actually sitting on it. I followed the direction of her voice out into the marsh and finally flusht her some forty or fifty feet abed of me. It was get- ting too dark to hnnt nests, so I markt the spot and ?vent back to erarip. The next morning I re- turned to the spot and soon flusht the male snipe some distance ahed of me. Supposing it was the fe- male, I searcht for a nest where he rose but found nothing and was about to give it up when the female Fig. 65. NEST AND EGGS OF PILEOLATED ?'ARBLER rose almost at my feet. Even then it took some search to see the nest and three eggs. As a nest of this species, found the previous year, had hatcht on June 12 I supposed that these eggs were nearly redy to hatch. Vhen I returned with my camera, however, the bird would not sit closely and I got only a picture of the nest and eggs. Two days later I visited the nest again thinking the eggs might be hatcht, but insted I found them cold and deserted. Incubation was not so advanced as I had supposed, in fact had barely begun. My presence with the camera had evidently been too much for the bird at that early stage. Except during the evenings, I found but little time to search this promising territory. One evening, while exploring the willow thicket at the npper end of the basin, I found a beautiful nest of the Pileolated Warbler ( V?'lsonia 13usilla pil- eolata). The nest was placed on the ground in a mossy hollow under the roots of a clump of willows. It contained five eggs. The sitting bird could be plainly seen from one side and allowed me to approach to about three feet before she left.