A Book on Birds 



The two men ahead, who look for all 

 the world like trappers of a century ago 

 and are threshing the likely-looking places 

 ^'for a 'possum," in Hstless, half-frozen 

 style, declare, in response to my query, 

 that the brook of sparkling water which 

 comes winding down through the trees 

 over a half-dozen snowy cascades, ^^ never 

 had no name" — English which I once 

 thought deplorable from a ''newly-rich" 

 lady at a reception, but which sounds 

 all right out here. 



The ice being broken (and the figure 

 was never more appropriate than on this 

 frosty afternoon), I switch off from the 

 unchristened brook to the subject of birds, 

 and find in a moment that the woods- 

 men know the Winter Wren and his 

 haunts and habits quite well. ''He hides 

 in fence holes, and stumps, and logs," 

 they say; "and under the banks along 

 the water," I add, "where the half-exposed 

 roots of trees form an overhanging 

 shelter." 



But just here you discontinue the dis- 



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