PLAINS AND FOOTHILLS 187 



respectable soprano. A few extremely shy sparrows 

 flitted about in the thickets of a hollow as we began 

 our descent, and I have no doubt they were Lincoln's 

 sparrows. 



The valley and the irrigated plain were the birds' 

 elysium. Here we first saw and heard that captivating 

 bird, the lark bunting, as will be fully set forth in the 

 closing chapter. This was one of the birds that had 

 escaped me in my first visit to Colorado, save as I had 

 caught tantalizing glimpses of him from the car- window 

 on the plain beyond Denver, and when I went south to 

 Colorado Springs, I utterly failed to find him. It has 

 been a sort of riddle to me that not one could be dis- 

 covered in that vicinity, while two years later these 

 birds were abundant on the plains both east and west 

 of Denver. If Colorado Springs is a little too far south 

 for them in the summer, Denver is obviously just to 

 their liking. No less abundant were the western mead- 

 ow-larks, which flew and sang with a kind of lyrical 

 intoxication over the green alfalfa fields. 



One morning we decided to walk some distance up 

 Clear Creek Canon. At the opening of the canon, 

 Brewer's blackbirds were scuttling about in the bushes 

 that broidered the steep banks of the tumultuous stream, 

 and a short distance up in the gorge a lazuli bunting 

 sat on a telegraph wire and piped his merry lay. Soon 

 the canon narrowed, grew dark and forbidding, and the 



