134 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



the mountain song-sparrow. Something over a week 

 earlier I had seen what I took to be the mountain song- 

 sparrow in a green nook below the summit of Pike's 

 Peak, and had noted his trill as a rather shabby per- 

 formance in comparison with the tinkling chansons of 

 the song-sparrow of the East. Had I mistaken some 

 other bird for the mountain song-sparrow ? Or was the 

 Buena Vista bird the common song-sparrow which had 

 gone entirely beyond its Colorado range ? Consulting 

 Professor W. W. Cooke's list of Colorado birds, I found 

 that Melospiza fasciata is marked " migratory, rare," 

 and has been known thus far only in the extreme 

 eastern part of the State ; whereas Melospiza fasciata 

 montana is a summer resident, "common throughout 

 the State in migration, and not uncommon as a breeder 

 from the plains to eight thousand feet."" 



But Professor Cooke fails to give a clue to the song 

 of either variety, and therefore my little problem remains 

 unsolved, as I could not think of taking the life of 

 a dulcet-voiced bird merely to discover whether it 

 should have " montana " affixed to its scientific name 

 or not. All I can say is, if this soloist was a moun- 

 tain song-sparrow, he reproduced exactly the trills of 

 his half-brothers of the East. 1 On the morning of my 



1 The problem has since been solved, through the aid of Mr. 

 Aiken. The Buena Vista bird was montana, while the bird in the 

 Pike's Peak hollow was Lincoln's sparrow. 



