OVER THE DIVIDE AND BACK 



ONE June day a Denver & Rio Grande train 

 bore the bird-lover from Colorado Springs to 

 Pueblo, thence westward to the mountains, up 

 the Grand Canon of the Arkansas River, through the 

 Royal Gorge, past the smiling, sunshiny upper moun- 

 tain vallevs, over the Divide at Tennessee Pass, and 

 then down the western slopes to the next stopping-place, 

 w hich was Red Cliff, a village nestling in a deep moun- 

 tain ravine at the junction of Eagle River and Turkey 

 Creek. The following day, a little after " peep o'' dawn," 

 I was out on the street, and was impressed by a song 

 coming from the trees on the acclivity above the village. 

 "Surely that is a new song,"' I said to myself; "and yet 

 it seems to have a familiar air."'"' A few minutes of hard 

 climbing brought me near enough to get my glass on 

 the little Ivrist, and then I found it was only the house- 

 wren ! " How could you be led astray by so familiar a 

 song.^" you inquire. Well, that is the humiliating 

 part of the incident, for I have been listening to the 

 house-wren's gurgling sonata for some twenty years — 

 rather more than less — and should have recognized it 



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