A NOTABLE QUARTETTE 293 



an intruder appears in their nesting haunts, the males, 

 which are ever on the lookout, call their spouses from 

 the nests, and then " snap their fingers," so to speak, 

 c at the puzzled searcher. 



However, by watching the mother birds carrying 

 worms in their bills I succeeded in finding two nests. 

 The first was at Breckenridge, and, curiously enough, 

 in a vacant lot at the border of the town, not on a 

 steep slope,, but on a level spot near the bank of Blue 

 River. The mother bird had slyly crept to her nest 

 while I watched, and remained firmly seated until I bent 

 directly over her, when she fluttered away, trailing a 

 few feet to draw my attention to herself. It was a cosey 

 nest site in a low, thick bush, beneath a rusty but 

 well-preserved piece of sheet-iron which made a slant 

 roof over the cradle. It contained three callow bant- 

 lings, which innocently opened their carmine-lined 

 mouths when I stirred the leaves above them. It 

 seemed to be an odd location for the nest of a bird 

 that had always appeared so wild and shy. The alti- 

 tude of the place is nine thousand five hundred and 

 twenty feet. 



My second green-tail's nest was in South Platte 

 Canon, near a station called Chaseville, its elevation 

 being about eight thousand five hundred feet. I was 

 walking along the dusty wagon road winding about the 

 base of the mountain, when a little bird with a wt>rm 



