OVER THE DIVIDE AND BACK 135 



departure from Buena Vista another song-sparrow sang 

 his matins, in loud, clear tones among the bushes of a 

 stream that flowed through the town, ringing quite a 

 number of changes in his tune, all of them familiar to 

 my ear from long acquaintance with the eastern forms 

 of the Melospiza subfamily. 



How well I recall a rainy afternoon during my stay at 

 Buena Vista ! The rain was not so much of a downpour 

 as to drive me indoors, although it made rambling in the 

 bushes somewhat unpleasant. What was this haunting 

 song that rose from a thick copse fringing one of the 

 babbling mountain brooks ? It mingled sweetly with 

 the patter of the rain upon the leaves. Surely it was 

 the song of the veery thrush ! The same rich, melodious 

 strain, sounding as if it were blown through a wind-harp, 

 setting all the strings a- tune at the same time. Too 

 long and closely had I studied the veery's minstrelsy in 

 his summer haunts in northern Minnesota to be deceived 

 now unless, indeed, this fertile avian region produced 

 another thrush which whistled precisely the same tune. 

 The bird's alarm-call was also like that of the veery. 

 The few glimpses he permitted of his flitting, shadowy 

 form convinced me that he must be a veery, and so I 

 entered him in my note-book. 



But on looking up the matter for the bird student 

 must aim at accuracy what was my surprise to find 

 that the Colorado ornithologists have decided that the 



