picking up food I am afraid that the otherwise well-mannered little king is 

 open to the reproach of talking with his mouth full. 



It is curious that on one shore of Lake Michigan birds should be abundant 

 in winter which on the opposite shore are accounted rare. I have said that 

 the Michigan kinglets were my first winter birds of the kind. The white-breasted 

 nuthatches that I met on that trip to Pokagon's home were also the first birds 

 of their kind that I had seen in the winter months. The nuthatches certainly 

 winter in northern Illinois but it cannot be that they occur in anything like the 

 numbers in which they are found in the same latitude in Michigan. Friends 

 have occasionally told me of the visits paid by white-breasted nuthatches to 

 January brenkfast tables spread with suet for the benefit of the winter birds. 

 It was never my luck, although I have made many a cold-weather trip for the 

 purpose, to find one of these feathered acrobats within range of my rambles. 

 It may go without saying, perhaps, that the bird is abundant on the west side 

 of the lake in fall and spring. 



While we kept to the highways we found the nuthatches on nearly every 

 tree that grew along our course. They flew from trunk to trunk as though 

 they were using the line of the road as a guide for a journey, but were making- 

 frequent stops at eating-houses along the way. The nuthatches were as silent 

 as the kinglets were noisy. Only occasionally would a vigorous "quank, quank," 

 break the stillness of the frosty air. 



From the time we left the village behind I had seen almost constantly 

 large flocks of birds flying over the fields but always keeping beyond the limit of 

 identification. I asked my driver friend what they were, and he said, "Snow- 

 birds." When I asked him what kind of snowbirds, he said, "Why, just snow- 

 birds." By and by when the road turned suddenly around the corner of some 

 woods we came on to a flock of the birds feeding in some bushes and on the 

 ground, which had been cleared of snow for some distance by the wind. The 

 birds were not more than forty feet from us, and there were several hundred- 

 of them. I asked my companion to take a good look and tell me what they 

 were. He looked and again said, "Snowbirds," adding that that was what every- 

 body thereabouts called them. The birds were Canadian or tree sparrows. I 

 will give the good Michigan folk credit for better judgment in the naming of this 

 bird than had the people who were responsible for dubbing the junco, snowbird. 

 The tree sparrow is much more of a snowbird than is the junco. As a matter 

 of fact, nearly all the juncoes leave us at the first sight of a snowflake, while 

 tree sparrows stay with us and maintain their cheerfulness no matter how loud 

 the wind howls nor how deep the snow lies. Not infrequently juncoes and tree 

 sparrows are found together, but this is during the migrations or at the extreme 

 southern limit of the tree sparrow's winter journey ings. Certain it is that no 

 juncoes had the hardihood to stay with those Michigan tree sparrows during that 

 February month. Before the day was over I had seen four great flocks of the 

 sparrows at close range, and not a junco feather did I see. 



Upon a dead tree in a field, with its shapely form silhouetted against the 



358 



