Page:Condor8(1).djvu/18

 I8 [ Vor. VIII A Collecting Trip to Southeastern Colorado BY EDWARD R, WARREN N April and May of last year, x9os, thewriter madeacollectiugtrip to the southeast part of Colorado. With the exception of a few days' stay at Lamar the entire period xvas spent iu Baca County, which is the extreme southeastern county of the State. I arrived atLamar at midnight of April4, and remained there until the morning of the loth, when It(okthestage for Spring- field, the connty-seat of BacaCounty, fifty miles away, reaching there late that afternoon, and securing quarters at the hotel kept by MrsA C. Bruner, who was kind enough to put up with a collector aud his traps. Leaving there on the 26th, Idrove east almost to the Kansas line, where I stopped at the ranch of Mr. J. M. Johnston, at which Monou Postoffice is located. Mr. Johnston anti his family took me iu, a perfect stranger, unintroduced, gave mc the best they had, in fact treated me while, and I shall always remember my stay there with pleastire. I stopped there until May 9th, wheu I returned to Spring- field and remained until the x7th. Ithen went nearly thirty miles in a north- westerly directim, and located at the ranch of Mr.E.J. Gaume, iu the northwest corner of the county, where I remained until tile 26th, beiug also hospitably treated there. Theu I again returned to Spriugfield, and left for home on June 2, but doing my last field work May 3 I. The country about I,amar is a prairie country, but not as level as in Baca County. The Arkansas River flowsbythe north side of the town, and its bottom is well wooded with cottonwood trees with some uuderbrush. The land along the river is largely taken tip and cultivated. To the south the ground gradually rises until it culminates in a nearly level mesa or prairie. Aditch winds around on this rising ground and below it the land is cultivated, above uot. In places the soil is very sandy. The road betweeu Lamar and Springfield is over a monotonous, nearly level prairie. Two streams with a little water are crossed, Clay Creek and Two Butte Creek; also Bear Creek about two miles north of Springfield, but this has only a little water here and there iu holes. Baca County is a typical prairie country, very flat and level, tiresomely so to one accustomed to the mountains. No trees except along what few water courses there are, and not alvays along them. These trees are mostly broad-leaved cot- tonwoods, with a few willow, wild plum and cherry trees. Bear Creek north of Springfield has quite a good many trees along its banks, and it is a good collect- ing ground. Mr. Johnston's ranch is alsoou Bear Creek, but with comparatively few trees about, tho a short distance east, at about t.e state line, there is quite a little grove of small cottonwoods which I found full of birds. And all afternoon spent on Buffalo Creek three miles uorth showed many birds amoug the trees there. In fact wherever ole could find trees aloug these creeks he would find birds. Bear Creek, instead of emptying into some larger stream, has an easterly course in Kan- sas for a little distance the, disappears in the ground. Locally they say it "empties iuto Kansas." The country around Gaume's ranch is quite different as it is on the edge of what is known as "The Cedars," which name covers the extreme western part of Baca County, and the eastern portions of Las Animas and Bent Counties. It is a