RAMBLES ABOUT GEORGETOWN 203 



labored as the alto strain of the clay-colored sparrow 

 of the Kansas and Nebraska prairies, although it runs 

 somewhat higher on the staff. The siskins seen at 

 Georgetown moved about in good-sized flocks, feeding 

 awhile on weed-seeds on the sunny slopes, and then 

 wheeling with a merry chirp up to the pine-clad sides 

 of the mountains. As they were still in the gregarious 

 frame at Georgetown, I concluded that they had not 

 yet begun to mate and build their nests in that locality. 

 Afterwards I paid not a little attention to them farther 

 tip in the mountains, and saw several feeding their 

 young, but, as their nests are built high in the pines, 

 they are very difficult to find, or, if found, to examine. 

 Our birdlets have superb powers of flight, and actually 

 seem to revel in hurling themselves down a precipice 

 or across a chasm with a recklessness that makes the 

 observer's blood run cold. Sometimes they will dart 

 out in the air from a steep mountain side, sing a ditty 

 much like the goldfinch's, then circle back to their 

 native pines on the dizzy cliff. 



I must be getting back to my first ramble below 

 Georgetown. Lured by the lyrics of the green-tailed 

 towhee, I climbed the western acclivity a few hundred 

 feet, but found that few birds choose such dry and 

 eerie places for a habitat. Indeed, this was generally 

 my experience in rambling among the mountains ; the 

 farther up the arid steeps, the fewer the birds. If you 



