more resonant--better singer than the Baltimore." It might be added
that Bullock's, like the orchard, but unlike the Baltimore, pipes a real
tune, with something of a theme running through its intermittent
outbursts. The plumage of the young bird undergoes some curious
changes, and what I took to be the year-old males seemed to be the most
spirited musicians.

Maurice Thompson's tribute to the Baltimore oriole will apply to that
bird's western kinsman. He calls him:--

"Athlete of the air--
Of fire and song a glowing core;"

and then adds, with tropical fervor:

"A hot flambeau on either wing
Rimples as you pass me by;
'T is seeing flame to hear you sing,
'T is hearing song to see you fly.

* * * * *

"When flowery hints foresay the berry,
On spray of haw and tuft of brier,
Then, wandering incendiary,
You set the maple swamps afire!"

Many nests of Bullock's oriole rewarded my slight search. They are
larger and less compactly woven than the Baltimore's, and have a woolly
appearance exteriorly, as if the down of the Cottonwood trees had been
wrought into the fabric. Out on the plains I counted four dangling
nests, old and new, on one small limb; but that, of course, was unusual,
there being only one small clump of trees within a radius of many
miles.

In the vicinity of Manitou many trips were taken by the zealous
pedestrian. Some of the dry, steep sides of the first range of mountains
were hard climbing, but it was necessary to make the effort in order to
discover their avian resources. One of the first birds met with on these
unpromising acclivities was the spurred towhee of the Rockies. In his
attire he closely resembles the towhee, or "chewink," of the East, but
has as an extra ornament a beautiful sprinkling of white on his back and
wings, which makes him look as if he had thrown a gauzy mantle of silver
over his shoulders.

But his song is different from our eastern towhee's. My notes say that
it is "a cross between the song of the chewink and that of dickcissel,"
and I shall stand by that assertion until I find good reason to disown
it--should that time ever come. The opening syllabication is like
dickcissel's; then follows a trill of no specially definable character.
There are times when he sings with more than his wonted force, and it is
then that his tune bears the strongest likeness to the eastern towhee's.
But his a