r way up the canon. But happily the sun is on our side, and the sun
of Colorado is not to be despised: a screen of umbrellas and parasols
and carriage curtains shuts us from view as completely as if the
passers-by had no eyes on that side. If seen, we should be classed among
the "sights," and the legitimate prey of the sight seeker. We should
certainly be stared at, perhaps have glasses turned upon us, possibly be
kodaked, and without doubt take prominent place in all the newspaper
letters that go from here. But we may be sure of solitude till the sun
crosses the road.

Yet this is far from solitude. Here comes a whole bevy reviling us, six
or seven of them, running up and down the branches of a great bush, all
scolding at the top of their voices,--a family of house wrens lately
emancipated from their wooden castle in that old stump across the
brook,--pert and saucy little parents, and droll babies imitating them
with spirit.

The wrens were not the only tenants of that old tree-trunk; I have spent
many hours beside it. Such conveniences for bird homes are rare in this
country, and that one was well occupied, and offered a problem I was
never able to solve. Beside the deserted woodpecker home to which the
wrens had succeeded, there were two freshly made woodpecker doors, and
both led to homes of the red-shafted woodpecker or western flicker, who
differs from our familiar flicker only in having red instead of yellow
shafts to his wing and tail feathers, and wearing the red badge of his
family on his "mustaches" instead of on his collar, as does our bird.

One day when I was watching the stump, a male flicker came with food,
and alighted at the lower door, upon which a young bird put his bill out
and was fed in the murderous-looking fashion of the flickers. Papa
thrust his long beak down baby's throat, and gave several
vicious-looking pokes, as if to hammer something down. While I was
musing over this strange way of feeding, the bird left, and a female
flicker appeared. She glanced into the open door, and then to my
surprise slipped half around the trunk and a foot higher, and stopped
before the other hole, which I had not noticed till then. Instantly a
head came out, much bigger than the first one, uttered the familiar
flicker baby-cry, and was fed.

Then the question that interested me was, Were there two nests, or one
of two stories with babies of different ages? Did both belong to one
pair, or was that little dame