82 IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 



ally himself, and showing every time he winked 

 as did the little one, also snowy-white eye- 

 lids, in strange contrast to the dark slate-colored 

 plumage. 



This aesthetic manner of discharging family 

 duties, alternating food for the body with rap- 

 ture of the soul, continued for some time, proba- 

 bly until the young bird had as much as was 

 good for him ; and then supplies were cut off by 

 the peremptory disappearance of the purveyor, 

 who plunged with the brook over the edge of a 

 rock, and was seen no more. 



A little later a grown bird appeared, that I 

 supposed at first was the returning papa, but 

 a few moments' observation convinced me that 

 it was the mother ; partly because no song ac- 

 companied the work, but more because of the 

 entirely different manners of the new-comer. 

 Filling the crop of that importunate offspring 

 of hers was, with this Quaker-dressed dame, a 

 serious business that left no time for rest or rec- 

 reation. Two charmed hours I sat absorbed, 

 watching the most wonderful evolutions one 

 could believe possible to a creature in feathers. 



At the point where this little drama was en- 

 acted, the brook rushed over a line of pebbles 

 stretching from bank to bank, lying at all an- 

 gles and of all sizes, from six to ten inches in 

 diameter. Then it ran five or six feet quietly, 



