208 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



enough adapted to their needs for nesting sites, but now 

 they prefer cosey niches and crannies in human dweUings, 

 and appear to appreciate the society of human beings. 



For over a week we made Georgetown our headquar- 

 ters, going off every day to the regions round about. 

 Among my most treasured finds here was the nest of 

 Audubon's warbler — my first. It was saddled in the 

 crotch of a small pine a short distance up an acclivity, 

 and was prettily roofed over with a thick network of 

 branches and twigs. Four white, daintily speckled eggs 

 lay in the bottom of the cup. Wliile I was sitting in 

 the shadow of the pine, some motion of mine caused the 

 little owner to spring from her nest, and this led to its 

 discovery. As she flitted about in the bushes, she 

 uttered a sharp chip, sometimes consisting of a double 

 note. The nest was about four feet from the ground, 

 its walls built of grasses and weed-stems, and its con- 

 cave little floor carpeted with cotton and feathers. A 

 cosey cottage it was, fit for the little poets that erected 

 it. Subsequently I made many long and tiresome 

 effbrts to find nests of the Audubons, but all these 

 eflbrts were futile. 



One enchanting day — the twenty-fourth of June — 

 was spent in making a trip, with butterfly-net and field- 

 glass, to Green Lake, an emerald gem set in the moun- 

 tains at an altitude of ten thousand feet, a few miles 

 from Georgetown. Before leaving the town, our first 



