198 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



Rockies where no water flows over the surface the 

 porous, sandy soil is dry and parched. The altitude 

 of Georgetown is eight thousand four hundred and 

 seventy-six feet. We were therefore three thousand 

 feet higher than we had been in the morning, and had 

 a right to expect a somewhat different avi-fauna, an 

 expectation in which we were not disappointed. 



Our initial ramble took us down the valley. The 

 first bird noted was a familiar one the warbling vireo, 

 which is very abundant in Colorado in its favorite local- 

 ities, where all day you may be lulled by its " silvery 

 converse, just begun and never ended." No descrip- 

 tion of a bird so well known in both the East and the 

 West is required, but the one seen that day gave 

 a new performance, which seems to be worthy of more 

 than a passing notice. Have other bird students ob- 

 served it ? The bird was first seen flitting about in 

 the trees bordering the street ; then it flew to its little 

 pendent nest in the twigs. 1 turned my glass upon it, 

 and, behold, there it sat in its tiny hammock singing 

 its mercurial tune at the top of its voice. It continued 

 its solo during the few minutes I stopped to watch it, 

 glancing over the rim of its nest at its auditor with 

 a pert gleam in its twinkling eyes. That was the first 

 and only time I have ever seen a bird indulging its 

 lyrical whim while it sat on its nest. Whether the 

 bird was a male or a female I could not determine, but, 



