r his health.

A short distance up the canyon of the west branch of Clear Creek, a new
kind of flycatcher was first heard, and presently seen with my glass. He
sat on a cliff or flitted from rock to bush. He uttered a sharp call,
"Cheep, cheep, cheep"; his under parts were bright yellow, his upper
parts yellow-olive, growing darker on the crown, and afterwards a nearer
view revealed dark or dusky wings, yellowish or gray wing-bars, and
yellow eye-rings. He was the western flycatcher, and bears close
likeness to our eastern yellow-breasted species. Subsequently he was
quite frequently met with, but never far above the altitude of
Georgetown.

In the same canyon a beautiful Macgillivray's warbler was observed, and
two water-ousels went dashing up the meandering stream, keeping close
to the seething and roaring waters, but never stopping to sing or bid us
the time of day. Very few ousels were observed in our rambles in this
region, and no nests rewarded my search, whereas in the vicinity of
Colorado Springs, as the reader will recall, these interesting birds
were quite frequently near at hand. A mother robin holding a worm in her
bill sped down the gulch with the swiftness of an arrow. We soon reached
a belt of quaking asps where there were few birds. This was succeeded by
a zone of pines. The green-tailed towhees did not accompany us farther
in our climb than to an elevation of about nine thousand three hundred
feet, but the siskins were chirping and cavorting about and above us all
the way, many of them evidently having nests in the tops of the tall
pines on the dizzy cliffs. Likewise the hermit thrushes were seen in
suitable localities by the way, and also at the highest point we reached
that day, an elevation of perhaps ten thousand five hundred feet.

While some species were, so to speak, our "companions in travel" the
entire distance from the town to the lake, and others went with us only
a part of the way, still other species found habitats only in the higher
regions clambering far up toward the timber-line. Among these were the
mountain jays, none of which were found as far down the range as
Georgetown. They began to proclaim their presence by raucous calls as
soon as we arrived in the vicinity of Green Lake. A family of them were
hurtling about in the pine woods, allowing themselves to be inspected at
short range, and filling the hollows with their uncanny calls. What a
voice the mountain jay has! Nature did a q