48 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



plain, " Is there anything green down below ? I 'd give 

 almost anything to see a green patch of some kind." 

 There was a yearning strain in his tones that really 

 struck me as pathetic. Here were visitors revelling in 

 the magnificence of the panorama, their pulses tingling 

 and their feelings in many cases too exalted for expres- 

 sion ; but those whose business or duty it was to remain 

 on the summit day after day soon found life growing 

 monotonous, and longed to set their eyes on some patch 

 of verdure. To the visitors, however, who were in hale 

 physical condition, the panorama of snow-clad ranges 

 and isolated peaks was almost overwhelming. In the 

 gorges and sheltered depressions of the old mountain's 

 sides large fields of snow still gleamed in the sun and 

 imparted to the air a frosty crispness. 



When the crowd of tourists, after posing for their 

 photographs, had departed on the descending car, I 

 walked out over the summit to see what birds, if 

 any, had selected an altitude of fourteen thousand 

 one hundred and forty-seven feet above sea-level 

 for their summer home. Below me, to the east, 

 stretched the gray plains running off to the sky- 

 line, while the foothills and lower mountains, which had 

 previously appeared so high and rugged and difficult of 

 access, now seemed like ant-hills crouching at the foot of 

 the giant on whose crown I stood. Off to the southwest, 

 the west, and the northwest, the snowy ranges towered, 



