MY WINTER COMPANIONS. 23 



stautly on the lookout for live or liibernating 

 delicacies in the winter season, as are also the 

 kinglets. How cunning and laughable it is to 

 watch one of them thrusting his tiny beak and 

 head into a cluster of leaves to see if thei*e are 

 eatables Avithin ! If there are, the birds will 

 work w^ith might and main until the insects 

 are stowed away in their craws. 



But how do the birds quench their thirst 

 when all the streams and ponds are covered 

 with ice and snow ? Oh, that does not puzzle 

 them for a moment ! They simply eat snow, 

 as you have probably seen farmyard fowls do. 

 " When snow is melted, it is as wet as water," 

 is evidently their way of expressing it. 



Why has not Nature, so thoughtful in many 

 respects, made stockings for the birds ? Every 

 other part of their bodies is quite well protect- 

 ed, but their little feet are bare, and must often 

 get frostbitten. You have no doubt seen the 

 English sparrows squatting flat on their breasts 

 pecking olfal or seeds from the snow, or per- 

 haps holding up one foot, and then the other, 

 in their feathery pockets to warm them. 



Yet it is remarkable how long some birds 

 can continue to wade about in the snow. A 

 flock of horned or shore larks remained in my 

 neighborhood one winter, and in an adjacent 



