watch for slight stirrings among the leaves the falling cotton is a
constant distraction. The butterflies, too, wandering about in their
aimless way, are all the time deceiving the bird student, and drawing
attention from the bird he is watching.

On the other hand, one of the maddening pests of bird study at the East
is here almost unknown,--the mosquito. Until the third week in June I
saw but one. That one was in the habit of lying in wait for me when I
went to a piece of low, swampy ground overgrown with bushes. Think of
the opportunity this combination offers to the Eastern mosquito, and
consider my emotions when I found but a solitary individual, and even
that one disposed to coquette with me.

I had hidden myself, and was keeping motionless, in order to see the
very shy owners of a nest I had found, when the lonely mosquito came as
far as the rim of my shade hat, and hovered there, evidently meditating
an attack--a mosquito hesitating! I could not stir a hand, or even shake
my leafy twig; but it did not require such violent measures; a light
puff of breath this side or that was enough to discourage the gentle
creature, and in all the hours I sat there it never once came any
nearer. The race increased, however, and became rather troublesome on
the veranda after tea; but in the grove they were never annoying; I
rarely saw half a dozen. When I remember the tortures endured in the
dear old woods of the East, in spite of "lollicopop" and pennyroyal, and
other horrors with which I have tried to repel them, I could almost
decide to live and die in Colorado.

The morning bird chorus in the cottonwood grove where I spent my June
was a great shock to me. If my tent had been pitched near the broad
plains in which the meadow-lark delights, I might have wakened to the
glorious song of this bird of the West. It is not a chorus, indeed, for
one rarely hears more than a single performer, but it is a solo that
fully makes up for want of numbers, and amply satisfies the lover of
bird music, so strong, so sweet, so moving are his notes.

But on my first morning in the grove, what was my dismay--I may almost
say despair--to find that the Western wood-pewee led the matins! Now,
this bird has a peculiar voice. It is loud, pervasive, and in quality of
tone not unlike our Eastern phoebe, lacking entirely the sweet
plaintiveness of our wood-pewee. A pewee chorus is a droll and dismal
affair. The poor things do their best, no doubt, an