OVER THE DIVIDE AND BACK 135 



departure from Buena Vista another song-sparrow sang 

 his matins, in loud, clear tones among the bushes of a 

 stream that flowed through the town, ringing quite a 

 number of changes in his tune, all of them familiar to 

 my ear from long acquaintance with the eastern forms 

 of the Melospiza subfamily. 



How well I recall a rainy afternoon during my stay at 

 Buena Vista ! The rain was not so much of a dowTipour 

 as to drive me indoors, although it made rambling in the 

 bushes somewhat unpleasant. AVhat was this hamiting 

 song that rose from a thick copse fringing one of the 

 babbling mountain brooks ? It mingled sweetly with 

 the patter of the rain upon the leaves. Surely it was 

 the song of the veery thrush ! The same rich, melodious 

 strain, sounding as if it were blown through a wind-harp, 

 setting all the strings a-tune at the same time. Too 

 long and closely had I studied the veery's minstrelsy in 

 his summer haunts in northern Minnesota to be deceived 

 now — unless, indeed, this fertile avian region produced 

 another thrush which whistled precisely the same tune. 

 The bird's alarm-call was also like that of the veery. 

 The few glimpses he permitted of his flitting, shadowy 

 form convinced me that he must be a veery, and so I 

 entered him in my note-book. 



But on looking up the matter — for the bird student 

 must aim at accuracy — what was my surprise to find 

 that the Colorado ornithologists have decided that the 



