toons with a
rapidity that fairly made my head whirl. At one place several of them
grew very bold, dashing at me or wheeling around my head, coming so
close that I could hear the _susurrus_ of their wings as well as the
sharp, challenging buzz from their throats.

Perhaps it would interest you to know where the rambler found these tiny
hummers. They were never in the dark canyons and gorges, nor in the
ravines that were heavily wooded with pine, but in the open, sunshiny
glades and valleys, where there were green grass and bright flowers. In
the upper part of both North and South Cheyenne Canyons they were
plentiful, although they avoided the most scenic parts of these
wonderful mountain gorges. Another place where they found a pleasant
summer home was in a green pocket of the mountain above Red Cliff, a
village on the western side of the great range. On descending the
mountains to the town of Glenwood, I did not find them, and therefore am
disposed to think that in the breeding season they do not choose to
dwell in too low or too high an altitude, but seek suitable places at an
elevation of from seven thousand to nine thousand feet.

_SUMMIT OF PIKE'S PEAK_

_Only a small portion of the peak is shown in the view. The
comparatively level area referred to in the text lies back of the signal
station on the crest. At a garbage heap near the building a flock of
leucostictes were seen, and the writer was told that they came there
regularly to feed. From this sublime height the American pipits rise on
resilient wings hundreds of feet into the air until they disappear in
the cerulean depths of the sky, singing all the while at "heaven's
gate."_

[Illustration]

One day, while staying at Buena Vista, Colorado, I hired a saddle-horse
and rode to Cottonwood Lake, twelve miles away, among the rugged
mountains. The valley is wide enough here to admit of a good deal of
sunshine, and therefore flowers studded the ground in places. It was
here I saw the only female broad-tailed hummer that was met with in my
rambles in the Rockies. She was flitting among the flowers, and did not
make the buzzing sound that the males produce wherever found. She was
not clad so elegantly as were her masculine relatives, for the
throat-patch was white instead of purple, and the green on her back did
not gleam so brightly. But, oddly enough, her sides and under
tail-coverts were stained with a rufous tint--a color that does not
appear at all in the