The day was serene and beautiful, the sky a deep indigo, unflecked with clouds, save a few filmy wracks here and there, and the breeze as balmy as that of a May morning in my native State. So quiet was the alpine solitude that on all sides we could hear the solemn roar of the streams in the ravines hundreds of feet below, some of them in one key and some in another, making almost a symphony. For several hours we tarried, held by a spell. "But you have forgotten your ornithology!" some one reminds me. No one could blame me if I had. Such, however, is not the case, for ornithology, like the poor, is never far from some of us. The genial little optimists that had been hopping about on the snow on the declivities had acted as our cicerones clear to the summit, and some of them remained there while we tarried. Indeed the leucostictes were quite plentiful on the mountain's brow. Several perched on the dismantled walls of the abandoned government building on the summit, called cheerily, then wheeled about over the crest, darted out and went careering over the gulches with perfect aplomb, while we watched them with envious eyes, wishing we too had wings like a leucosticte, not that we "might fly away," as the Psalmist longed to do, but that we might scale the mountains at our own sweet will. The favorite occupation of our little comrades, besides flying, was hopping about on the snow and picking up dainties that were evidently palatable. Afterwards we examined the snow, and found several kinds of small beetles and other insects creeping up through it or about on its surface. Without doubt these were leucosticte's choice morsels. Thus Nature spreads her table everywhere with loving care for her feathered children. The general habits of the rosy finches are elsewhere depicted in this volume. It only remains to be said that they were much more abundant and familiar on Gray's Peak than on Pike's Peak,--that is, at the time of my respective visits to those summits. [Illustration: _Thistle Butterfly_] [Illustration: _Western White_] To omit all mention of the butterflies seen on this trip would be proof of avian monomania with a vengeance. The lad who was with me found a number of individuals of two species zigzagging over the summit, and occasionally settling upon the rocks right by the fields of snow. What kind of nectar they sipped I know not, for there were no flowers or verdure on the heights. They were the Painted Lady or Thistle Butterfly (_Pyrameis cardui_) and the Western White (_Pieris occidentalis_). He captured an individual of the latter species with his net, and to-day it graces his collection, a memento of a hard but glorious climb. The descent of the mountain was laborious and protracted, including some floundering in the snow, but was accomplished without accident. A warm supper in the miner's shack which we had leased prepared us for the restful slumbers of the night.