Page:Condor5(2).djvu/7

3 6 Zenaidura rnacroura Catharles aura Buteo borealis calurus Aquila chrysaetos Palco mexicanus Palco peregrinus analurn Falco sparverius deserticolus Bubo virginianus pallescens Geococcyx caliJbrnianus Dryobates villosus (subspet?) Phal?noptitus nuttalli Chordeiles virginianus henryi .4 etonantes rnelanoleucus Trochilus alexandri Selasphorus rufus Tyrannus verticalis Plyiarchus cinerascens Sayornis saya Aphelocorna woodhousei Corvus corax sinuatus THE CONDOR VOL. V Uyanocephalus cyanocephalus Yclerus bullocki Uarpodacus rnexicanus frontalis Uhondestes grarnmacus strigatus Spizella socialis arizon? Arnphispiza bilineata deserticola Petrochelidon lunifrons Tachycineta thalassina Stelgidopteryx serripennis Lanius ludovicianus excubitorides Vireo vicinior A4rirnus polyglottos leucopterus Toxostorna bendirei Salpinctes obsoletus Catherpes mexicanus conspersus Paros inornatus ridgwayi Psaltriparus plumbens Polioptila plurnbea Sialia arctica Feathers Beside the Styx. BY EDGAR A. MEARNS. TRANGERS to the Yellowstone National Park are apt to regard the truest staterecurs respecting its wonders as nothing short of startling. Pos4bly their confirmation may cause the pendulum of credulity to swing too far m the opposite direction. Certain it i? that some of the tales of the Park to which credence is generally attached require scientific corrobaration, and none more so than those which relate to supposed death pens iu which animals, large and small, perish in numbers. When traveling with my wife through the Yellowstone region, fourteen years ago, vague accounts ?eached us of hollows and places filled with deadly gases into which all creatures passing must leave hope and life behind. These whisperings, later, culminated in the story of the tragic death of "Wahb," the grizzly, from the facile pen of Ernest Thompson Seton. On returning to the Park, in April, ?9o2, I learned that to doubt the existence of a valley or canyon of death, bestrewn with the decaying carcasses of bears and other beasts, somewhere in that region, was to display hopeless ignorance of fact. Men of high position and undoubted veracity had testified, as eye-witnesses, to these things; but Captain Hiram M. Chittenden, U.S. A., an engineer officer charged with carrying on extensive improvements now in progress in the Yellowstone National Park, tells me that, notwithstanding his great familiarity with the topography of the Park, no such place is known to him. When such an alleged locality was reached the huge dead beasts had van- ished, and no more than a fragment of bone such as might be found anywhere in the region was visible. Though we were unable to set foot on the bank of a veritable River Styx, any