un down South Platte Canyon,
adding no new birds to our list, but making some interesting
observations. At Cassel's a house-wren had built a nest on the veranda
of the hotel where people were sitting or passing most of the time, and
was feeding her tiny brood. In the copse of the hollow below the resort,
the mountain song-sparrows were trilling sweetly--the only ones we had
encountered in our wanderings since leaving Arvada on the plains. These
musicians seem to be rather finical in their choice of summer resorts.
Chaseville is about a mile below Cassel's, and was made memorable to us
by the discovery of our second green-tailed towhee's nest, a description
of which I have decided to reserve for the last chapter of this volume.
Lincoln's sparrows descanted in rich tones at various places in the
bushy vales, but were always as wild as deer, scuttling into the
thickets before a fair view of them could be obtained.

The veranda of a boarding-house at Shawnee was the site of another
house-wren's nest. While I stood quite close watching the little mother,
she fed her bantlings twice without a quaver of fear, the youngsters
chirping loudly for more of "that good dinner." At this place barn
swallows were describing graceful circles and loops in the air, and a
sheeny violet-green swallow squatted on the dusty road and took a
sun-bath, which she did by fluffing up all her plumes and spreading out
her wings and tail, so that the rays could reach every feather with
their grateful warmth and light. It was a pretty performance.

[Illustration: _Violet-green Swallow_

"_Squatted on the dusty road and took a sun-bath_"]

A stop-over at Bailey's proved satisfactory for several reasons, among
which was the finding of the Louisiana tanagers, which were the first we
had seen on this trip, although many of them had been observed in the
latitude of Colorado Springs. Afterwards we found them abundant in the
neighborhood of Boulder. The only pigmy nuthatches of this visit were
seen in a ravine above Bailey's. In the same wooded hollow I took
occasion to make some special notes on the quaint calls of the
long-crested jays, a task that I had thus far deferred from time to
time. There was an entire family of jays in the ravine, the elders
feeding their strapping youngsters in the customary manner. These birds
frequently give voice to a strident call that is hard to distinguish
from the cries of their kinsmen, the mountain jays. When I pursued