hundreds of miles away, and all their loving toil would go for naught.
Bluebirds had previously been seen at the timber-line among the
mountains, and here was a pair forty miles out on the plain--quite a
range for this species, both longitudinally and vertically.

During the forenoon the following birds were observed: A family of
juvenile Arkansas flycatchers, which were being fed by their parents; a
half-dozen or more western grassfinches, trilling the same pensive tunes
as their eastern half-brothers; a small, long-tailed sparrow, which I
could not identify at the time, but which I now feel certain was
Lincoln's sparrow; these, with a large marsh-harrier and a colony of
cliff-swallows, completed my bird catalogue at this place. It may not be
amiss to add that several jack-rabbits went skipping over the swells;
that many families of prairie dogs were visited, and that a coyotte
galloped lightly across the plain, stopping and looking back
occasionally to see whether he were being pursued.

It was no difficult task to study the birds on the plain. Having few
hiding-places in a locality almost destitute of trees and bushes, where
even the grass was too short to afford a covert, they naturally felt
little fear of man, and hence were easily approached. Their cousins
residing in the mountains were, as a rule, provokingly wary. The number
of birds that had pre-empted homesteads on the treeless wastes was
indeed a gratifying surprise, and I went back to the mountains refreshed
by the pleasant change my brief excursion upon the plains had afforded
me.

[Illustration: _Coyotte_

"_Looking back to see whether he were being pursued_"]

A PRETTY HUMMER

[Illustration]

Where do you suppose I got my first glimpse of the mite in feathers
called the broad-tailed humming-bird? It was in a green bower in the
Rocky Mountains in plain sight of the towering summit of Pike's Peak,
which seemed almost to be standing guard over the place. Two brawling
mountain brooks met here, and, joining their forces, went with increased
speed and gurgle down the glades and gorges. As they sped through this
ravine, they slightly overflowed their banks, making a boggy area of
about an acre as green as green could be; and here amid the grass and
bushes a number of birds found a pleasant summer home, among them the
dainty hummer.

From the snow-drifts, still to be seen in the sheltered gorges of Pike's
Peak, the breezes would frequently blo