84 ? THE CONDOR Vol. XIV 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 wall if he stayed away from it any longer, so we had to part. We stayed in Fort Morgan until Saturday, June 3, partly waiting for mail, and there were also a lot of little odd jobs I wished to get off my hands before going farther. We were 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 weather 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 (Neotoma rupicola) 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 Raymet 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 down 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. We 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 we had tremendous wind and dust storms, mak- ing it almost impossible to do any field work, especially the day before we left, when it was about as b?rct a storm of the sort as I have ever seen. We left June 10, driving nearly thirty-five miles, and camping at Crow Creek, near Briggsdale, a newly started town. The next day we had a very interesting time. We .took pictures of rabbits, cottontails and.a young jack, a Meadowlark's nest, Nighthawks, and a young Mountain Plover. The prairies
- were yellow in some places with the blossoms of the prickly pear (Opuntia),
and 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 Auk we went as far as Fort Collins the next day, reaching there early in the afternoon. I at first tried to find W. L. Burnett, who is now Curator of the Museum of the Agricultural College, but he happened to be out of town for the day, so I hunted up a camping place on the north side of the town by the Cache la Poudre River, and we made ourselves comfortable. Late in the afternoon Burnett came and paid us a visit. We spent the whole of the next day there, leaving on the 14th, accompanied 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. A few miles after leaving Fort Collins we reached the foothills and the
