hiich, the slender-billed Brown Creeper, the dainty Redpoll, and a score of others, 

 including the Ruffed Grouse and cheerful Bob-white. What is their vacation 

 season, and how is it spent? In what, if a similar condition existed among human 

 beings, would be considered a time of pinching economy akin to famine, and tin- 

 enduring of which not only patiently but cheerfully by men would be called 

 heroism. But as birds do not push trembling hands in our faces and clamor for 

 charity, we forget their needs and they too often disap]iear, deprived of natural 

 food and shelter by the very march of civilization of which we are proutl. 



If they cannot speak for themselves, their friends should never cease to do it 

 for them in the same old words, winter after winter. "Do not clear away the 

 wild hedges — leave some shocks of corn in your field, scatter grain sweepings in 

 likely places, fasten suet to your orchard tree, and sjiread a lunch-counter under 

 vour window out of the reach of cats! Do not use that irresponsible argument. 

 ■'There are never any birds in winter where I live": for if there are none the 

 responsibility is yours for not aiding them to be there. For we are all keepers of 

 our brother, in one sense or another, and the larger brotherhood includes all forms 

 of sensate life. When we deliberately shirk responsibility we have ceased to live 

 in the best sense. 



Remember, my friend, in February lies the stress of winter. It is not too 

 late ; begin now, feed the hungry birds, and as you do it study the mystery of 

 their winter lives ; for, as the bird song, of all music, sinks the deepest into the 

 heart of memory, even as the bird's air-cleaving wing bears it the farthest through 

 that which to us is the unfathomable. — M. O. 11'. 



