COLORADO BIRDS. 15 
veyed me from head to foot ; then, as though satisfied that all was 
not right, he hopped cautiously to the next clump of bushes, and 
then flying close along the ground, disappeared in the thicket. 
A dove, that alighted near me, stretched up its neck, looked 
timidly at me an instant, and then flew away, and a Townsend’s 
flycatcher that came down from the cedar-clad ridge behind me to 
quench its thirst, lingered about for a few moments and then, 
becoming frightened at some invisible thing, hastened back to its 
secluded retreat. A red-shafted flicker rapped industriously for 
awhile, on an old dead cottonwood, and then left for more produc- 
tive fields. Hearing the low whistle of the cedar bird above me, 
I looked up and saw several of them flying over. These were the 
first I had seen for nearly a year. In response to my call a flock 
of Arkansas finches (Chrysomitris psaltria), that were flying past, 
settled among the topmost twigs of the thicket, and silently eyed 
several purple and house finches that occupied similar positions 
about them. These little beauties are the last to greet us in 
summer, and among the last to leave in autumn, which is quite 
unusual in our summer visitors; those coming last being generally 
the first to leave and vice versa. They did not become common 
here this season until the first of July, yet I noticed them last fall 
as late as the fifth of November. The males still wear their sum- 
mer plumage, and appear at a short distance as bright as when 
they first arrived from the South. 
From the cottonwood grove, I recognized the familiar notes of 
the song sparrow, and soon one of these appeared in the edge of the 
thicket near me, with a Lincoln’s finch for a neighbor. A flock of 
tree sparrows just from the North, and a solitary chipping spar- 
row that had lingered a few days behind the rest of his tribe, were 
also among the occupants of the thicket. The Oregon snowbird 
too, and the more recently described Junco annectens, were each : 
represented there by a single individual ; and once I thought I saw _ 
-a chat among its branches, but as I have not observed any of these = 
birds for a month, I was probably mistaken. Then a flock of six 
or eight bluebirds (Sialia arctica), probably an old pair with their 
young, passed on their way southward, and three or four Brewer's __ 
blackbirds that seemed to have no destination i particular made 
a short halt near by. Then a flock of thirty or forty noisy, cawing, 
_ Maximillian’s jays settled down on the stubble-field where they 
_ remained until one of their number, seeing me, gave a caw, when 
