interesting to watch their method of retiring. The young were already
grown, and the entire colony were converting their nests into sleeping
berths, every one of them occupied, some of the partly demolished ones
by two and three birds. But there were not enough couches to go round,
and several of the birds were crowded out, and were clinging to the side
of the wall on some of the protuberances left from their broken-down
clay huts. It was a query in my mind whether they could sleep
comfortably in that strained position, but I left them to settle that
matter for themselves and in their own way.

Leaving the town, we soon found that the irrigated meadows and
bush-fringed banks of the stream made habitats precisely to the taste of
Brewer's blackbirds, which were quite plentiful in the park. My
companion was "in clover," for numerous butterflies went undulating over
the meadows, leading him many a headlong chase, but frequently getting
themselves captured in his net. Thus occupied, he left me to attend to
the birds. At the border of the village a little bird that was new to me
flitted into view and permitted me to identify it with my glass. The
little stranger was the western savanna sparrow. South Park was the only
place in my Colorado rambles where I found this species, and even his
eastern representative is known to me very imperfectly and only as a
migrant. The park was fairly alive with savannas, especially in the
irrigated portions. I wonder how many millions of them dwelt in this
vast Eden of green almost twice as large as the State of Connecticut!
The little cocks were incessant singers, their favorite perches being
the wire fences, or weeds and grass tufts in the pastures. Their voices
are weak, but very sweet, and almost as fine as the sibilant buzz of
certain kinds of insects. The pretty song opens with two or three
somewhat prolonged syllables, running quite high, followed by a trill
much lower in the scale, and closes with a very fine, double-toned
strain, delivered with the rising inflection and a kind of twist or
jerk--"as if," say my notes, "the little lyrist were trying to tie a
knot in his aria before letting it go." More will be said about these
charming birds before the end of this chapter.

The western meadow-larks were abundant in the park, delivering with
great gusto their queer, percussive chants, which, according to my
notes, "so often sound as if the birds were trying to crack the whip."
The park