300 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
and bills, the grouping of race, tribe, and family that both 
divide the bird world and at the same time bind it together ; 
for she very well knew that when spring came with its 
procession of songsters, the children would be so eager to 
listen, see, follow, and learn the names of the living birds 
that they would not have patience to listen to the dry 
details. 
THE SNOWBIRD 
When the leaves are shed 
And the branches bare, 
When the snows are deep 
And the flowers asleep, 
And the autumn dead ; 
And the skies are o’er us bent 
Gray and gloomy since she went, 
And the sifting snow is drifting 
Through the air; 
Then mid snowdrifts white, 
Though the trees are bare, 
Comes the Snowbird bold 
In the winter’s cold. 
Quick and round and bright, 
Light he steps across the snow. 
Cares he not for winds that blow, 
Though the sifting snow be drifting 
Through the air. 
— Dora R. GooDALE. 
ON HEARING A WINTER WREN SING IN WINTER 
When wintry winds through woodlands blow 
And naked treetops shake and shiver; 
While all the paths were bound in snow, 
And thick ice chains the merry river, 
