igo4] My Birds and How They Came to Me. 73 



MY BIRDS AND HOW THEY CAME TO ME. 



It was my f^cod fortune to spend the coldest week of this win 

 ter in a small New Hampshire town on the bank of the Connecticut 

 River. The thermometer stood at 25'' at breakfast time; the days 

 were sunny, the air was still, and the moon at the full ; all this with 

 an unbroken level of fresh snow made winter a delight to one "who 

 likes that kind of thing." 



Sparrows were not to be seen at our end of the town, but 

 chicKadees, white-breasted nuthatches, pine grosbeaks and downy 

 and hairy woodpeckers were more or less common visitors. A 

 sheltered corner of the verandah had been wired in below by way of 

 protection from cats and in this corner was a large wooden trough 

 filled with dried sun^flowers, while suet hung from the trees and 

 shrubs near by. To the sun-flowers came flocks of chickadees, 

 with an occasional nuthatch, in and out the live-long day. I 

 watched them with delight and came home to try my hand at feed- 

 ing birds in Cambridge. 



On the south side of the house stands a willow-tree whose 

 long boughs reach out in all directions, making in summer a forest 

 of green, where birds of various kinds find camping ground. 

 There have been crows, robins, grackles, rose-breasted grosbeaks, 

 pine grosbeaks, white-breasted nuthatches, chickadees, brown 

 creepers, flickers, downy woodpeckers, humming birds, song 

 sparrows, chipping sparrows, redstarts, cedar birds, vireos, 

 summer yellowbirds, orioles, blue jays, golden-crowned kinglets, 

 goldfinches, cuckoos, and once — A day to be remembered! — one 

 of the maids came breathless to my door. 



"Please, Miss, John wants you to look out of the window to 

 see a bird." 



"What is it, John?" I said. 



"Well, it was the reddest bird I ever seen. I was watering 

 the purple beech and he came and bathed in the pool ; but now 

 he's gone." 



"Don't you think it was a robin?" I asked in exact imitation 

 of my own Bird-man, who generally calls all my new birds English 

 sparrows. 



"Robin?" repeated John, "Well, no, it wasn't a robin. As if 



