ls of the abandoned government building on the summit, called
cheerily, then wheeled about over the crest, darted out and went
careering over the gulches with perfect aplomb, while we watched them
with envious eyes, wishing we too had wings like a leucosticte, not that
we "might fly away," as the Psalmist longed to do, but that we might
scale the mountains at our own sweet will. The favorite occupation of
our little comrades, besides flying, was hopping about on the snow and
picking up dainties that were evidently palatable. Afterwards we
examined the snow, and found several kinds of small beetles and other
insects creeping up through it or about on its surface. Without doubt
these were leucosticte's choice morsels. Thus Nature spreads her table
everywhere with loving care for her feathered children. The general
habits of the rosy finches are elsewhere depicted in this volume. It
only remains to be said that they were much more abundant and familiar
on Gray's Peak than on Pike's Peak,--that is, at the time of my
respective visits to those summits.

[Illustration: _Thistle Butterfly_]

[Illustration: _Western White_]

To omit all mention of the butterflies seen on this trip would be proof
of avian monomania with a vengeance. The lad who was with me found a
number of individuals of two species zigzagging over the summit, and
occasionally settling upon the rocks right by the fields of snow. What
kind of nectar they sipped I know not, for there were no flowers or
verdure on the heights. They were the Painted Lady or Thistle Butterfly
(_Pyrameis cardui_) and the Western White (_Pieris occidentalis_). He
captured an individual of the latter species with his net, and to-day it
graces his collection, a memento of a hard but glorious climb. The
descent of the mountain was laborious and protracted, including some
floundering in the snow, but was accomplished without accident. A warm
supper in the miner's shack which we had leased prepared us for the
restful slumbers of the night.

Although the weather was so cold that a thin coating of ice was formed
on still water out of doors, the next morning the white-crowned sparrows
were singing their sonatas long before dawn, and when at peep of day I
stepped outside, they were flitting about the cabins as if in search of
their breakfast. The evening before, I left the stable-door open while I
went to bring the burros up from their grazing plat. When I returned
with the animals, a whit