RAMBLES ABOUT GEORGETOWN 215 



pass some distance below Georgetown brought us into an- 

 other valley, whose green meadows and cultivated fields 

 lay a little lower, perhaps a couple hundred feet, than 

 the valley from which we had come. Here we found 

 many Brew r er's blackbirds, of which there were very few 

 in the vicinity of Georgetown. They were feeding their 

 young, some of which had already left the nest. No 

 red-winged blackbirds had been seen in the Georgetown 

 valley, while here there was a large colony of them, 

 many carrying food to the bantlings in grass and bush. 

 Otherwise there was little difference between the avi- 

 fauna of the two valleys. 



One morning I climbed the steep mountain just 

 above Georgetown, the one that forms the divide be- 

 tween the two branches of Clear Creek. A western 

 chipping sparrow sat trilling on the top of a small pine, 

 as unafraid as the chippie that rings his silvery peals 

 about your dooryard in the East ; nor could I distin- 

 guish any difference between the minstrelsy of this 

 westerner and his well-known cousin of Ohio. He dex- 

 terously caught an insect on the wing, having learned 

 that trick, perhaps, from his neighbor, the little west- 

 ern flycatcher, which also lived on the slope. Hermit 

 thrushes, Audubon^s warblers, and warbling vireos dwelt 

 on the lower part of the acclivity. When I climbed far 

 up the steep wall, scarcely able to cling to its gravelly 

 surface, I found very few birds ; only a flycatcher and 



