°'l9ii ] Widmann, Birds of Estes Park, Colorado. 305 



full of wild scenery, but now more and more occupied by cottages 

 and camps wherever there is a spot level enough to pitch a tent. 

 The elevation of Fork's Hotel is 6160 feet and that of the village of 

 Estes at the post-office is 7500 feet. Elkhorn Lodge, at the west 

 end of the village, one half mile from the post-office, is 7550 feet; 

 Horse Shoe Ranch, five miles up in the Fall River valley, is 8500 

 feet ; Miller's Ranch and Rustic Hotel, five miles north of the post- 

 office, are 7,900 feet; Stead's Hotel, five miles southwest, is 8000 

 feet, and Long's Peak Inn, eight miles south, 9000 feet above the 

 sea. 



All these places are connected by fine driving roads, and it is 

 mainly along these roads and within one mile of them that the notes 

 were taken. No attempt was made to reach timberline, and the 

 highest region visited was about 9500 feet in the vicinity of Long's 

 Peak Inn, which region, for the sake of shortness, will be called 

 Mills Park, named after Enos Mills, the genial proprietor of the Inn. 

 Lying in the lap of the Front Range with its long row of high peaks, 

 one of which, Long's Peak, reaches a height of 14,259 feet, and 

 enclosed by chains of so-called foothills, most of them over 8000 feet 

 high, the views from the roads of Estes Park are an ever changing 

 panorama of mountain scenery, made most picturesque by the 

 numerous snow fields which crown the loftiest peaks. Even as 

 late as June 24 a fresh layer of the ' beautiful ' added to the magni- 

 ficence of the Front Range as beheld from the village, and when we 

 left the valley four weeks later, large patches were still defying 

 the hot rays of a burning July sun. 



What enormous quantities of snow are deposited during the long 

 winters in those heights can be conceived only when we consider 

 that all the water carried down to the plains throughout summer is 

 the product of melting snow, the precipitation during summer 

 being hardly sufficient to keep the ground moist enough for the 

 growing vegetation. 



From June 10 to July 5 the base of our operations was at Elkhorn 

 Lodge; from July 6 to 15 at Long's Peak Inn, and from July 15 to 

 18 at Fork's Hotel. Long's Peak Inn lies in the middle of a valley 

 covered partly by a level meadow, called Glacier Meadow, one mile 

 long by one fourth of a mile wide and very swampy in places, 

 especially so near the inn, where the Inn Brook meanders through 



