206 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



having a like propensity to break into falsetto, becoming 

 a veritable squeak, especially early in the season before 

 their throat-harps are well tuned. With his powerful 

 muscles and wide stretch of wing the robin is admirably 

 adapted to the life of a mountaineer. You find him 

 from the plains to the timber-line, sometimes even in 

 the deepest canons and on the most precipitous moun- 

 tain sides, always the same busy, noisy, cheery body. 

 One day I saw a robin dart like a meteor from the top 

 of a high ridge over the cliffs to the valley below, where 

 he alighted on a cultivated field almost as lightly as a 

 flake of snow. He probably she (what a trouble 

 these pronouns are, anyway!) gathered a mouthful 

 of worms for his nestlings, then dashed up to the top of 

 the ridge again, which he did, not by flying out into the 

 air, but by keeping close up to the steep, cliffy wall, 

 striking a rock here and twig there with his agile feet to 

 help him in rising. The swiftness of the robin's move- 

 ments about the gorges, abysses, and precipices of the 

 mountains often inspires awe in the beholder's breast, 

 and, on reflection, stirs him with envy. Many nests were 

 found in the Georgetown valley, in woodsy and bushy 

 places on the route to Gray's Peak as far as the timber- 

 line, in the neighborhood of Boulder, in the Platte 

 River Canon, in South Park, and in the Blue River re- 

 gion beyond the Divide. Some of the nests contained 

 eggs, others young in various stages of plumage, and 



