e
green-tailed towhees, spurred towhees, Audubon's warblers, and mountain
hermit thrushes are all partial to acclivities, even very steep ones,
but they do not select those that are too remote from the babbling brook
to which they may conveniently resort for drinking and bathing.

A green and bushy spot a half mile below the village was the home of a
number of white-crowned sparrows. None of them were seen on the plains
or in the foothills; they had already migrated from the lower altitudes,
and had sought their summer residences in the upper mountain valleys,
where they may be found in great abundance from an elevation of eight
thousand feet to copsy haunts here and there far above the timber-line
hard by the fields of snow.

The white-crowns in the Georgetown valley seemed to be excessively shy,
and their singing was a little too reserved to be thoroughly enjoyable,
for which reason I am disposed to think that mating and nesting had not
yet begun, or I should have found evidences of it, as their grassy cots
on the ground and in the bushes are readily discovered. Other birds that
were seen in this afternoon's ramble were Wilson's and Audubon's
warblers, the spotted sandpiper, and that past-master in the art of
whining, the killdeer. Another warbler's trill was heard in the thicket,
but I was unable to identify the singer that evening, for he kept
himself conscientiously hidden in the tanglewood. A few days later it
turned out to be one of the most beautiful feathered midgets of the
Rockies, Macgillivray's warbler, which was seen in a number of places,
usually on bushy slopes. He and his mate often set up a great to-do by
chirping and flitting about, and I spent hours in trying to find their
nests, but with no other result than to wear out my patience and rubber
boots. I can recall no other Colorado bird, either large or small,
except the mountain jay, that made so much ado about nothing, so far as
I could discover. But I love them still, on account of the beauty of
their plumage and the gentle rhythm of their trills.

The next morning, chilly as the weather was--and it was cold enough to
make one shiver even in bed--the western robins opened the day's concert
with a splendid voluntary, waking me out of my slumbers and forcing me
out of doors for an early walk. No one but a systematic ornithologist
would be able to mark the difference between the eastern and western
types of robins, for their manners, habits, and mins