14 JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



seemed utterly exhausted. I thought that the bird might be para- 

 lyzed with the cold. There he swung back and forth with the suet 

 in the wind, his beak rubbing against the suet, but made no attempt 

 to feed. He was apparently as helpless in the wind as the suet to 

 which he clung. He seemed to look upward without moving his 

 head. At last the Chickadee hopped to a branch, but still was a 

 wooden bird, with a peculiarly cunning expression in his eyes. Just 

 at this time I became conscious of a gray bird in the top of the tree, 

 one that had haunted the neighborhood for days. Then it was that 

 the Northern Shrike made a movement and the Chickadee quickly 

 came to life and darted away. The Shrike hovered in air an instant, 

 with wings and tail spread, and neck stretched forward and down, 

 then darted after the Chickadee. 



The flight of the birds was out of range of my windows. It was 

 impossible to follow the birds through the deep snow without stop- 

 ping to put on overshoes. There was no time for that, so I remained 

 uncertain as to the actual outcome of the pursuit as far as visual 

 knowledge was concerned. I have no doubt, however, that the 

 Chickadee took refuge in the thick branches of a spruce at the 

 corner of the house where the Shrike could not easily follow. If the 

 little bird attempted the long flight across the open field, there was 



no hope for him. 



IV. 



Feeding the Spring Migrants. 

 From December to April, the Chickadees and the Red-breasted 

 Nuthatches continued to visit the suet tree for a part of their food 

 supply. Occasionally a stranger bird, such as the Redpoll Linnet, 

 perched in the branches of the suet tree, or the White-winged Cross- 

 bills came to feed on the spruce cones in the tree by the house, but 

 nothing unusual happened until the first of April, when the two 

 warm days preceding the last day of March were followed by a 

 severe snow storm, accompanied by rain, hail and sleet. Then all 

 the little migrants — Song, Fox and Tree Sparrows, Juncos and Red- 

 winged Blackbirds — swarmed under my window to eat hayseed, 

 crumbs of white bread, suet, oatmeal, in fact anything that sug- 



