February, 1920] 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



35 



eye, another puff of impulse had caught them into 

 the welkin and away beyond our ken. 



Hoping next day to get another glimpse of livmg 

 nature in the form of these winged spirits, we 

 sallied forth after an early lunch past the field of 

 their operations; nothing to be seen, but the wide- 

 spread carpet of snow with scattered stalks of 

 weeds and dry brown clover heads protruding here 

 and there. 



A mile or more east, we turned down a side- 

 road, and had just risen from swamp level with 

 poplar and cedar thickets on either side, when a 

 large cinnamon-brown bird flew across the road 

 in front of us, apparently from the outskirts of an 

 old deserted orchard on our right. 



It settled forthwith, in some staghorn sumacs at 

 the margin of the road within 4 or 5 yards of where 

 we stood. Like many birds seen feeding in win- 

 ter, it appeared remarkably tame; there it perched, 

 while we scanned it leisurely through our glasses; 

 t, large bright-brown bird with broken lines of 

 dark throstle flecks on its white breast, a long 

 light brown tail apparently more than doubling the 

 length of the bird; on the forward half of the wing 

 two distinct, if not conspicuous bars of whitish, the 

 upper somewhat shorter than the lower; unmistak- 

 ably, the Brown Thrasher. 



It presented a remarkable picture as it stood 

 swaying slightly in the breeze among the stiff, naked 

 and fantastically angled branches of the sumac; pre- 

 sently, craning forward and up, it drove its long 

 slender bill into one of the quaint, velvety-crimson, 

 candelabra seed-spikes of the "Staghorn," and ate 

 voraciously. A slight breeze was blowing and the 

 delicate plumes of the bird's neck and back ruffled 

 and stirred with the play of the air as soft as 

 thistledown; perhaps this fluffing of its feathers was 

 a protest at the chill of our northern winter. Oc- 

 casionally the breeze freshened and the bird al- 

 most lost its balance, reft of its beloved prop and 

 windbreak of summer foliage; once I saw it partly 

 unfurl the wings, but for the most part it used the 

 long tail for a balancer, depressing and spreading 

 the feathers fanwise in perfect adjustment to the 

 streams of air. 



From first to last the bird remained perfectly 

 silent and careless, though aware of its observers. 

 It little skilled to note that here and there in the 

 sumac where the bird had perched, the stout vel- 

 vety spikes had already been picked to the bone 

 and nothing left but bare skeletons of stem and 

 pedicel; or that on the snow-white floorcloth be- 

 neath lay a sprinkling of seed and husk crumbs 

 from the feast of previous days ; none but the most 



perverse of skeptics needed any such demonstra- 

 tion; in the directness with which the bird flew to 

 the sumac, mounted its perch and fell to, the in- 

 ference was already plain here was its daily lunch 

 counter where it had a standing order for one set 

 dish and no other. Many of our winter residents 

 show this constant preference in their food; the 

 Pine Grosbeak flocks to the rowan, the Evening 

 Grosbeak to the Manitoba maple, with the same 

 unerring flight as this Thrasher to the sumac. 



We took our fill of this delightful sight and then 

 passed quietly on, leaving the bird still "throng 

 at its simple one-course meal. The Brown Thrasher 

 has given me many an hour of exquisite pleasure, 

 listening to its rhapsodies of leafy June, but I 

 would not for a wilderness of summer songbirds 

 have missed this sight of him in our December bar- 

 rens, and the image of ' all will not quickly fade 

 from the heart. 



Twenty minutes later, as we retraced our steps 

 on the next line south, we were stopped at the 

 crest of a hill by a flock of Redpolls playing in 

 the cedar shrubberies. The birds seemed to court 

 the inner recesses of their thicket, and rather than 

 be spied on presently rose in a twittering cloud and 

 -were wafted away to the south. We were just 

 turning away with a sigh of pleased content at 

 their joy of life, when we both on the instant be- 

 came aware of some larger form moving about 

 under the cedars, skulking in the shadows. Fol- 

 lowing its direction a few paces, we soon came 

 abreast of it, and quite unconcernedly it stopped 

 and faced about in an open place by the fence ; 

 by all the Powers! a Ground Robin or Towhee, 

 and a male at that! black coat, jet hood and cape, 

 white vest flanked at the wings with reddish brown, 

 and when it turned away, a long black tail with 

 conspicuous white margins and cross marks at the 

 cuter end. 



What were these birds thinking about? Had 

 D^n Whetung of Chernong deceived them to their 

 undoing with his forecast of an open winter, or 

 h'd birds and Indian chief alike misread the si^ns 

 of the weather? December the 29th was a fine 

 winter's dav, bright and almost calm, with only 

 '0 or 12 degrees of f rest ; but it is worth notinr; 

 that three weeks earlier we had passed throug'h 

 a zero dip at least. Three times since, I have gone 

 the same round, annroaching the hallowed snots 

 with bated breath, bu": no further vision has b^en 

 vouchsafed ; and I cannot even be sure whether 

 these summer residents of ours ever managed to see 

 the old year out, or sped south for their new year, as 

 having outstayed their welcome in old Ontario. 



