COLORADO BIRDS. ; 13 
cups are acrid and caustic, as are the Aracew, while Coptis is 
simply bitter. 
I have been able to offer but a sketch of our poisonous plants, 
and may have omitted to mention a few. Ihave been surprised 
in studying them to find how little appears to have been written 
about them except as regards their medicinal effects, and how this 
little is distributed in many different books. I cannot close this 
article without a renewed warning against the reckless use of herbs 
whose effects may be deleterious or even fatal. 
A GLIMPSE AT COLORADO AND ITS BIRDS. 
BY C. E. AIKEN. 
Earvy this morning, the 17th of October, as I was riding past 
Beaver Creek, a large and beautiful mountain stream that flows 
through portions of El Paso, Fremont and Puebla Counties, my 
attention was attracted by a great twittering among the feathered 
tribe in an enclosure on the creek bottom. As there seemed to 
be an unusually large congregation of species for this season of 
the year, I dismounted from my pony, and leaning upon the cotton- 
wood rail-fence, I watched the birds for nearly an hour, noting the 
different varieties, and observing the actions of each. 
Immediately in front of me was a low, dense, wild-plum thicket, 
overrun and interwoven with hop-vines, but at this season nearly 
stripped of its leaves; and it seemed this morning as though each 
fallen leaf had been replaced with a little feathered songster. At 
least a dozen species were represented; but the white-crowned 
sparrows were by far the most numerous, and the singing or twit- 
tering of these it was, that first drew my attention. 
Beyond this thicket, a thrifty growth of cottonwood extended. os 
along the banks of the creek from right to left, from the midst. 
of which the songs of numerous robins, and of one or two other ie 
birds, rang out as clear and joyous as in early springtime. Many : 
of the trees had their trunks encased in wild grape c or  hop-vines, 
and most of them were bare of leaves; but occasionally a tree = 
clothed in a bright yellow foliage relieved the monotony and beau- 
2 tified the eview. A high, pan barren ridge that formed the ae ie 
