The Birds of El Paso County, Colorado 463 



The number of hours of sunshine are unusually great, a 

 day when the sun does not shine at all being extremely rare. 

 The heavy rain and hail storms which occasionally occur dur- 

 ing the breeding season are sometimes destructive to nesting 

 birds, their eggs and young, and a late cold storm in the spring 

 sometimes does much harm to migrants and late arrivals of 

 ' summer birds. In winter an unusually heavy snowfajl may 

 prevent seed-eating birds from obtaining food for a short 

 time, but the snow rarely lays on the ground more than a 

 few days. 



As a whole the climate of the County may be described as 

 favorable to bird life. 



WORKERS IN THE REGION. 



The first ornithologist to visit El Paso County was Dr. J. 

 A. Allen, who came here with an expedition sent out by the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard College, early in 

 August, 1871, and collected along the east base of the foothills 

 from Palmer Lake to Colorado City. His report was pub- 

 lished in July, 1872, the first list of Colorado birds. 



C. E. Aiken, the senior author of the present paper, came 

 to Colorado Springs, October 26, 1871, not long after the 

 founding of the town, and thenceforward spent much time 

 in collecting in the vicinity, his work for the first two years 

 being nearly all done at his ranch on Turkey Creek, fifteen 

 miles southwesterly from Colorado Springs. The first re- 

 sults of his work were edited by Dr. T. M. Brewer and pub- 

 lished in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, December, 1872. 



H. D. Minot of Boston spent some time in the County in 

 the summer of 1879, and the results of his observations were 

 published in the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. 



In March, April, and May, 1882, Dr. J. A. Allen and 

 William Brewster were in Colorado Springs, and did much col- 

 lecting in the vicinity, publishing their list in- 1883, Bulletin 

 of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. Bendire's Thrasher and 



