304 Widmann, Birds of Estes Park, Colorado. [july 



at which time they are said to lay their eggs, I found this [cavity] 

 in the bird. 



They are well provided against the cold, as are all birds and 

 animals [sic] that are found here. Close to the body they have a 

 pretty fine down, like silk: outside of this there are quite thick 

 feathers. Their skin is interiorly lined with fat, and I must not 

 omit to state the fact that all of their intestines, vasa, blood vessels 

 and nerves were quite as distinct as in the larger animals. It was 

 therefore a matter of small wonder to me that they were so hard 

 to kill whenever an attempt w T as made in that direction. 





LIST OF BIRDS OBSERVED IN ESTES PARK, COLO- 

 RADO, FROM JUNE 10 TO JULY 18, 1910. 



BY OTTO WIDMANN. 



The name Estes Park, called after its first settler, Joel Estes, 

 October, 1859, is given to a beautiful region in Larimer County, 

 north central Colorado, Lat. 40° 24' north, Long. 105° 30' west. 

 The park is twenty miles long from east to west and fifteen miles 

 wide from north to south. Estes village is its center at the junc- 

 tion of Fall River with Big Thompson River. Two creeks, the 

 Black Canon from the northwest and Fish Creek from the south, 

 also empty their waters into the Big Thompson at this place. 

 Except in the vicinity cf the village, which has now a hundred 

 cottages where there were ten a few years ago, the valleys of the 

 different streams are mostly too narrow for cultivation. Large 

 short-grass meadows with sparse tree growth form the original 

 'parks' along the sides of the river bottoms, but in many places the 

 walls of the mountains are so steep and so near the water, that even 

 the road had to be cut through the rocks. This is particularly the 

 case in the Big Thompson Canon between the village and Fork's 

 Hotel at the mouth of the North Fork, a distance of about ten miles 



