204 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



will follow a mountain brook up a sunny slope or open 

 valley, you will be likely to find many birds ; but wan- 

 der away from the water courses, and you will look for 

 them, oftentimes, in vain. The green-tailed towhees, 

 spurred towhees, Audubon's warblers, and mountain 

 hermit thrushes are all partial to acclivities, even very 

 steep ones, but they do not select those that are too 

 remote from the babbling brook to which they may 

 conveniently resort for drinking and bathing. 



A green and bushy spot a half mile below the village 

 was the home of a number of white-crowned sparrows. 

 None of them were seen on the plains or in the foothills ; 

 they had already migrated from the lower altitudes, and 

 had sought their summer residences in the upper moun- 

 tain valleys, where they may be found in great abun- 

 dance from an elevation of eight thousand feet to copsy 

 haunts here and there far above the timber-line hard 

 by the fields of snow. 



The white-crowns in the Georgetown valley seemed 

 to be excessively shy, and their singing was a little too 

 reserved to be thoroughly enjoyable, for which reason I 

 am disposed to think that mating and nesting had not 

 yet begun, or I should have found evidences of it, as 

 their grassy cots on the ground and in the bushes are 

 readily discovered. Other birds that were seen in this 

 afternoon's ramble were Wilson's and Audubon's war- 

 blers, the spotted sandpiper, and that past-master in the 



