XX. 



ON THE LAWN. 



THE first thing that strikes an Eastern bird- 

 student in the Rocky Mountain region, as I 

 have already said, is the absence of the birds 

 he is familiar with. Instead of the chipping 

 sparrow everywhere, one sees the lazuli-painted 

 finch, or the Rocky Mountain bluebird; in 

 place of the American robin's song, most com- 

 mon of sounds in country neighborhoods on the 

 Atlantic side of the continent, is heard the sil- 

 ver bell of the towhee bunting, sometimes called 

 marsh robin, or the harsh " chack " of Brewer's 

 blackbird; the music that opens sleepy eyes at 

 daybreak is not a chorus of robins and song- 

 sparrows, but the ringing notes of the chewink, 

 the clear-cut song of the Western meadow-lark, 

 or the labored utterance of the black-headed 

 grosbeak ; it is not by the melancholy refrain of 

 the whippoorwill or the heavenly hymns of 

 thrushes that the approach of night is heralded, 

 but by the cheery trill of the house wren or the 

 dismal wail of the Western wood-pewee. 



Most of all does the bird-lover miss the 



