A COLORADO BEAR HUNT 97 



song of neither can rightly be compared in point of 

 plaintive beauty with that of the white-throated sparrow, 

 which, except some of the thrushes, and perhaps the win- 

 ter wren, is the sweetest singer of the Northeastern forests. 

 The spurred towhees were very plentiful ; and one morn- 

 ing a willow-thrush sang among the willows like a veery. 

 Both the crested jays and the Woodhouse jays came 

 around camp. Lower down the Western meadow larks 

 were singing beautifully, and vesper finches were abun- 

 dant. Say's flycatcher, a very attractive bird, with pretty, 

 soft-colored plumage, continually uttering a plaintive 

 single note, and sometimes a warbling twitter, flitted 

 about in the neighborhood of the little log ranch houses. 

 Gangs of blackbirds visited the corrals. I saw but one 

 song sparrow, and curiously enough, though I think it 

 was merely an individual peculiarity, this particular bird 

 had a song entirely different from any I have heard from 

 the familiar Eastern bird always a favorite of mine. 



While up in the mountains hunting, we twice came 

 upon owls, which were rearing their families in the de- 

 serted nests of the red-tailed hawk. One was a long-eared 

 owl, and the other a great horned owl, of the pale Western 

 variety. Both were astonishingly tame, and we found it 

 difficult to make them leave their nests, which were in 

 the tops of cottonwood trees. 



On the last day we rode down to where Glenwood 

 Springs lies, hemmed in by lofty mountain chains, which 

 are riven in sunder by sheer-sided, cliff-walled canyons. 

 As we left ever farther behind us the wintry desolation 

 of our high hunting grounds we rode into full spring. 



