My friend told me that I would not be able to distinguish the song of the lazuli from those of the summer and mountain warblers. We shall see whether he was right. One evening I was searching for a couple of blue grosbeaks at the border of Colorado Springs, where I had previously seen them, when a loud, somewhat percussive song, much like the summer warbler's, burst on my ear, coming from a clump of willow bushes hard by the stream. At once I said to myself, "That is not the summer warbler's trill. It resembles the challenging song of the indigo-bird, only it is not quite so loud and defiant. A lazuli finch's song, or I am sadly astray! Let me settle the question now." I did settle it to my great satisfaction, for, after no little effort, I succeeded in obtaining a plain view of the elusive little lyrist, and, sure enough, it proved to be the lazuli finch. Metaphorically I patted myself with a great deal of self-complacency, as I muttered: "The idea of Mr. Aiken's thinking I had so little discrimination! I know that hereafter I shall be able to detect the lazuli's peculiar intonations every time." So I walked home in a very self-confident frame of mind. A few days later I heard another song lilting down from the upper branches of a small tree. "Surely that is the lazuli again," I muttered. "I know that voice." For a while I eyed the tree, and presently caught sight of the little triller, and behold, it was--a summer warbler! All my self-complacency vanished in a moment; I wasn't cock-sure of anything; and I am obliged to confess that I was led astray in a similar manner more than once afterward. It may indicate an odd psychological condition to make the claim; but, absurd or not, I am disposed to believe that, whenever I really heard the lazuli, I was able to recognize his song with a fair degree of certainty, but when I heard the summer warbler I was thrown into more or less confusion, not being quite sure whether it was that bird or the other. The most satisfactory lazuli song I heard was on the western side of the range, at the resort called Glenwood. This time, as was usually the case, I heard the little triller before seeing him, and was sure it was _Passerina amoena_, as the bunting strains were plainly discernible. He was sitting on a telephone wire, and did not flit away as I stood below and peered at him through my glass, and admired his trig and handsome form. I studied his song, and tried to fix the peculiar intonations in my mind, and felt positive that I could never be caught again--but I was.[8] [8] In the foregoing remarks the lazuli finches have been represented as excessively shy. So they were in 1899 in the neighborhoods then visited. Strangely enough, in the vicinity of Denver in 1901, these birds were abundant and as easily approached and studied as are the indigoes of the East. See the chapter entitled, "Plains and Foothills."