OUR WINTER BIRDS. tS 
fect ball of feathers which are the best of clothing, and 
that they can shelter themselves from the driving storm, 
it appears that birds often perish from cold in large num- 
bers. Ordinarily, birds seem able to foretell a change of 
weather, and prepare. The reports of the United States 
weather bureau certainly show, that, during the fall and 
winter, the ducks, geese, cranes, crows, and other notable 
species—and apparently generally —abandon their former 
haunts upon the approach of a cold wave or hard win- 
ter storm for more southern localities, often passing beyond 
the reach of the severity of such storms, though taking 
their departure only a few hours before these unfavorable 
changes. Resident species, not caring, or not able, to run 
away to warmer latitudes, ought to know enough to hide 
away from the fury of the gale; and they do. But some- 
times there come sudden, unpresaged changes —cold, icy 
gales, which charge down upon us after thawing-days, con- 
verting the air, which was almost persuading the grass to 
revive, into an atmosphere that cuts the skin like the im- 
pinging of innumerable particles of frost, and shrivels ev- 
ery object with cold, or buries it under dry and drifting 
snow. ‘Then it is that the small birds, caught unprepared, 
suffer. At first, such as are overcome seem unusually ac- 
tive, running about apparently in search of food, but tak- 
8 
