Some Odd Bits of Bird Life y^ 



western fields to the rocky little spot known as David's Island, 

 in Long Island Sound. Let us make the journey if only for 

 the sake of a story of the hardihood of a song sparrow. I 

 spent the winter of the year 1888 at David's Island which 

 was then a United States military station. The first week in 

 March a song sparrow arrived on the island and made his 

 headquarters near a woodpile at the government dock. The 

 bird sang daily from the top of an upright pole which marked 

 one of the divisions of the woodpile into cords. At the end 

 of the second week there came that awful blizzard which 

 buried buildings in snow, rooted trees out of the earth, and 

 cost many human lives. The storm was the worst in the his- 

 tory of the land and it raged unremittingly for two days. 

 Then there came a lull; the sun shone on a buried country; 

 the wooden barracks of the army recruits in places were 

 hidden from sight. So terrific had been the storm that strong 

 men sentinels had been overcome at their posts. On the 

 morning of the clearing of the skies the soldiers of the garri- 

 son attacked the snow-drifts and broke a road to the wood- 

 pile where three days before the sparrow sang. When the 

 last great white mass was overcome the attacking party was 

 greeted by as cheerful a note as ever fell on soldiers' ears. 

 The minstrel was the song sparrow with his melody still 

 unfrozen in his throat and with a spirit that the storm could 

 not conquer. 



It would be edifying to a degree, doubtless, if we could 

 put ourselves in touch with the thoughts of birds. I would 

 give much to know just what it was that prompted a red- 

 headed woodpecker to a certain line of conduct on one occa- 

 sion. I concluded he was moved by a spirit of pure mischief 

 and nothing else, but possibly he had some graver reason in 



