276 BIRDS OF FIELD, FOREST AND PARK 



from the thick treetops, excellent cover for the 

 more timid folks. 



A few rods back of the orchard is a dense 

 growth of pine and hemlock, birch and maple 

 which reaches down the western slope of the hill 

 into a narrow glen where a tiny brook tinkles 

 and gurgles over its rocky bed. In front of this 

 orchard rich pasture lands slope down to the 

 farmhouses of the valley. That to the south is 

 studded by a grove of sugar maples whose 

 sturdy lichen-covered boles yield every spring a 

 generous flow of their lifeblood in response to 

 the invitation of the farmer, bountifully sup- 

 plying him with one of Nature's choicest sweets. 



These surroundings and the comparative 

 seclusion of the orchard make it the favorite 

 haunt of birds at all seasons of the year, and 

 rarely does a person enter its borders without 

 finding some one of them plying his trade in his 

 own peculiar way. 



In the late autumn days, as twilight falls, 

 Grouse slip out of the neighboring thickets to 

 feast upon the tender buds all carefully sealed 

 for winter. They are not, I fear, very welcome 

 visitors, for the fact is they do much damage by 

 nipping ofi" the blossom buds which enclose the 

 promise of next year's crop. 



So it frequently happens that the farmer is 

 seen in the dusk of a December day with gun 

 firmly clasped in toilwom hands making his 

 way stealthily about, or sitting quietly on some 

 moss-clad boulder, grimly bent upon the de- 

 struction of this feathered menace. Much as I 

 appreciate the justice of the fanner's cause, my 



