by assuming nonchalance, but flitted about in the willows and chirped
pitifully. I hurried away to relieve her distress. The cottages on the
slopes were gay with tourists enjoying their summer outing, and
beautiful Kiowa Lodge, perched on a shoulder of the mountain among
embowering pines, glowed with incandescent lights, while its
blithe-hearted guests pursued their chosen kinds of pastime; but none of
them, I venture to assert, were happier than the little white-crown in
her grassy lodge on the bank of the murmuring stream.

On the way down the canyon, as we were going to Denver, I was able to add
three belted kingfishers to my bird-roll of Colorado species, the only
ones I saw in the Rockies.

Our jaunt of 1901 included a trip to Boulder and a thrilling swing
around the far-famed "Switzerland Trail" to Ward, perched on the
mountain sides among the clouds hard by the timber-line. Almost
everywhere we met with feathered comrades; in some places, especially
about Boulder, many of them; but no new species were seen, and no habits
observed that have not been sufficiently delineated in other parts of
this book. If one could only observe all the birds all the time in all
places, what a happy life the bird-lover would live! It is with feelings
of mingled joy and sadness that one cons Longfellow's melodious lines:--

"Think every morning when the sun peeps through
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove,
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old, melodious madrigals of love!
And when you think of this, remember too
'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakened continents, from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."

A NOTABLE QUARTETTE[12]

On the plains of Colorado there dwells a feathered choralist that
deserves a place in American bird literature, and the day will perhaps
come when his merits will have due recognition, and then he shall have
not only a monograph, but also an ode all to himself.

[12] The author is under special obligation to Mr. John P. Haines,
editor of "Our Animal Friends," and president of the American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for publishing the
contents of this chapter in his magazine in time to be included in
this volume. Also for copyright privileges in connection with this
and other chapters.

The bird to which I refer is called the lark bunting in plain English,