MY WINTER COMPANIONS. 27 



Bird," slie writes, "are the nuthatches, which 

 are very tame, and stay about the premises all 

 the while, both summer and winter. The like 

 may be said of the chickadees." Her little 

 sisters have their playhouse in the garret, 

 which overlooks the woodshed, and, as they 

 keep crumbs scattered over the roof of this 

 shed, the birds are well fed, and become so 

 tame that they even go inside the garret while 

 the children are eating their luncheon. She 

 keeps cracked walnuts for her pets in the shed, 

 and one day, w^hen she climbed into a walnut 

 tree, she found many of the crannies of the 

 bark crammed with kernels. She also found 

 a grain of corn in a crevice. Uncertain 

 whether it was the work of squirrels or birds, 

 she kept watch, and saw a nuthatch seize a 

 kernel and hammer it into a gully of the bark, 

 crying, " Quank ! quank ! " in a very knowing 

 way. This vigilant, quick-witted girl will be 

 a genuine naturalist by and by. 



Where I live, no less interesting bird ways 

 have been observed. In the formf^r part of 

 this chapter I spoke with some surprise of the 

 absence of the snowbirds and the tree spar- 

 rows. A week or so after that was written I 

 found rather large, scattering flocks of both 

 species, although since then they have not 



