68 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



the three towns at the foot of the mountains with water 

 fresh from the snowfields. Here, to my intense rehef, 

 I was able to secure lodging and board as long as I 

 desired to remain. 



I enjoyed the generous hospitality offered me for two 

 nights and considerably more than one day. It was a 

 genuine retreat, right at the foot of a tall mountain, 

 embowered in a grove of quaking asps. Several persons 

 from Colorado Springs, one of them a professor of the 

 college, were spending their outing at the cottage, and 

 a delightful fellowship we had, discussing birds, litera- 

 ture, and mountain climbing. 



After resting awhile, I strolled up the valley to listen 

 to the vesper concert of the birds, and a rich one it 

 was. The western robins were piping their blithesome 

 " Cheerilies," Audubon's warblers were trilling in the 

 pines, and, most of all — but here I had one of the 

 most gratifying finds in all my mountain quest. It 

 will perhaps be remembered that the white-crowned 

 sparrows, so plentiful in the upper valley, were not to be 

 seen in the valley of Moraine Lake. Still there were 

 compensations in this cloistered dip among the tower- 

 ing mountains ; the mountain hermit thrushes — some- 

 times called Audubon's thrushes — found the seques- 

 tered valley precisely to their liking, and on the evening 

 in question I saw them and heard their pensive cadences 

 for the first time. Such exquisite tones, which seemed 



