e oak brush, ruffling up his neck feathers
till they stood out like a ruff, and uttering his cry; it can hardly be
called of distress, it became so evidently perfunctory. His mate never
tried deception, but relied upon skulking to and fro, unseen among the
bushes.

In seven or eight days, as soon, in fact, as they could stand, the
nestlings deserted the little home and I saw them no more, but I learned
one fact new to me about the singing of the chewink. After the nest was
abandoned I sat down in the usual place, hoping to hear the silver
tremolo I am so fond of. In a moment my bird began. Securely hidden, as
he thought, by the impenetrable oak brush, in the dim seclusion he
loves, he poured out his simple yet effective song for some time. Then,
to my amazement, with hardly a pause, he began a second song, quite
different, and unlike any chewink song I have heard. I had thought this
bird more closely confined to one role than most others, for none who
have studied birds will agree with the poet that

"Each sings its word or its phrase, and then
It has nothing further to sing or to say;"

but I learned on this day, and confirmed it somewhat later, that the
chewink can vary his song considerably.

But let us return to our nook. We will now turn around, and the world is
totally changed for us. Let us seat ourselves under a tall old
pine-tree, whose delicious aroma the hot sun draws out, and the gentle
breeze wafts down to refresh and delight us here below.

Before us is the brook, faint-hearted in manner, and only a murmur where
last summer it was a roar. Alas! the beautiful stream has seen reverses
since first I lingered on its banks with joy and admiration. Far up
above, just after it leaves the rocky walls of Cheyenne Canon, it has
fallen into the greedy hands of men who have drawn off half of it for
their private service. So the sparkling waters which gathered themselves
together near the top of Cheyenne, leaped gayly down the seven steps of
the falls, and rushed and bounded over the rocks of the canon, now run
tamely down between rows of turnips and potatoes, water an alfalfa
field, bathe the roots of a row of tired-looking trees, or put a lawn
a-soak. The fragment that is left winds on its old way, not half filling
its bed, with a subdued babble, suited to its altered fortunes.

[Sidenote: _A BEWITCHING BEAUTY._]

Still there is enough to delight a brook-lover, and this spot is the
chosen home of the most