36 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 



" It 's the gray sand bird," answered the na- 

 tive driver. 



" Otherwise the horned lark," added the 

 young naturalist, from his broncho behind the 

 carriage. 



Let not his name mislead : this pretty fellow, 

 in soft, gray-tinted plumage, is not deformed by 

 " horns ; " it is only two little tufts of feathers, 

 which give a certain piquant, wide-awake ex- 

 pression to his head, that have fastened upon 

 him a title so incongruous. The nest of the 

 desert-lover is a slight depression in the barren 

 earth, nothing more ; and the eggs harmonize 

 with their surroundings in color. The whole is 

 concealed by its very openness, and as hard to 

 find, as the bobolink's cradle in the trackless 

 grass of the meadow. 



Most persistent of all the singers of the grove 

 beside the house was the yellow warbler, a 

 dainty bit of f eatherhood the size of one's thumb. 

 On the Atlantic coast his simple ditty is tender, 

 and so low that it must be listened for ; but in 

 that land of " skies so blue they flash," he sings 

 it at the top of his voice, louder than the robin 

 song as we know it, and easily heard above the 

 roar of the wind and the brawling of the brook 

 he haunts. 



Before me at this moment is the nest of one of 

 these little sprites, which I watched till the last 



