THE CONDOR 
Vol. XIV 
S4 
on the train and send him back to Denver. We were .sorry to have him go, but 
he thought his business would go to the w'all if he stayed away from it any 
longer, .so we had to part. We stayed in Fort iMorgan until Saturday, June 3, 
partly waiting for mail, and there were ahso a lot of little odd jobs 1 wished to 
get off my hands before going farther. We \vere camped not far from the fair 
grounds, and there were many trees about these, and consequently many birds, 
so that we were able to put in some time studying them. There is always one 
drawback about camping in a town, and especially a railroad town, and that is 
one never dares to leave his camp unprotected. Someone must always stay there, 
which of course limits the opportunities for study. The w'eather was decidedly 
warm here, up to the middle of the eighties in the shade. 
June 3 we left, headed for Pawnee Buttes, with murderous designs on more 
wood rats, and as before, with Cary to blame for my going ; for, as he had taken 
a species (Neotonia nipicola) there, which I had not taken, I felt bound to add 
it to my collection. Aside from this, the Buttes are a well known locality for 
fossil mammals of Tertiary age, and the American Museum has made large col- 
lections there. We reached there the afternoon of the 4th, camping at Raymer 
the night of the 3rd. 
The fossils are in a .soft friable sandstone, apparently somewhat argillaceous, 
which is easily eroded by wind and weather, and consequently worn dowm to the 
general level with the exception of the Buttes and a line of bluffs to the west 
and north, which, having a capping of hard conglomerate and sandstone, have 
resisted the elements better. About the East Butte was a small colony of White- 
throated Swifts, and on a sandstone bluff forming the bank of Pawnee Creek 
at one place was a colony of Cliff Swallows unusually well situated for photo- 
graphic purposes. W'e did not devote as much time to the birds as we might, 
partly because we were interested in fossils just then, and partly because on the 
last three afternoons of our stay w^e had tremendous wind and dust storms, mak- 
ing it almost impossible to do any field w'ork, especially the day before we left, 
when it was about as bad a storm of the sort as .1 have ever seen. 
W'e left June 10, driving nearly thirty-five miles, and camping at Crow 
Creek, near Briggsdale, a newly started town. I'he next day we had a very 
intere.sting time. W'e took pictures of rabbits, cottontails and a young jack, a 
Meadowlark’s nest, Xighthawks, and a young Mountain Plover. The prairies 
were yellow in some ])laces with the blossoms of the prickly pear (Opuiifia) , 
ami in others white with the evening primrose {Oenothera) . The day was 
hot. and we saw many birds. Lark Sparrows, Horned Larks and Mountain 
Plover, squatting in the shadows of the fence posts to get what relief they could 
from the heat. A few miles east of Ault we began to get into the irrigated 
district, and the green fields and trees certainly did look good to us after pass- 
ing over so much of the dry plains. Stopping for the night at Ault we went as 
far as Fort Collins the next day, reaching there early in the afternoon. I at 
fir.st tried to find W. L. Burnett, who is now Curator of the iMuseum of the 
.\gricultural College, but he happened to be out of town for the day, so I hunted 
uj) a camping ]4ace on the north side of the town by the Cache la F’oudre River, 
and we made ourselves comfortable. Late in the afternoon Burnett came and 
paid us a visit. W’e spent the whole of the next day there, leaving on the 14th. 
acconqjanied by Burnett who wished to get a taste of the simple life. He got it 
that night when a sudden shower came up and nearly drowned him in his bed. 
.\ few miles after leaving Lort Collins we reached the foothills and the 
