OUR WINTER BIRDS. neh? 
moths and beetles as are abroad; but necessarily he must 
subsist chiefly on the larvee which hibernate under the rot- 
ten bark, and upon insects’ eggs. Thus he is helped to 
many a meal by the sapsuckers and tomtits, whose strong- 
er bills tear open the recesses where the larve lie. In 
summer the kinglets retreat to boreal regions to rear their 
young; but we know very little about their domestic life. 
Just before they leave us in the spring I may, perhaps, 
have the rare treat to hear a long way off the resonant song 
of this minute minstrel—bold and clear, carrying me away 
aloft like that of the English skylark. 
Another personification of 
“Contented wi’ little, and canty wi’ mair,” 
is the brown creeper, whose bill is curved, and long, and 
tender, so that he can do very little digging for himself, 
but follows in the track of the woodpeckers and nut- 
hatches, and picks up the grubs which their vigorous beaks 
have dislodged, or searches carefully for such small insects, 
and their eggs, as are not well concealed. There is one 
now in the tree next my window, in the edge of the city, 
as I write. He flew from the neighboring horse-chestnut 
to the foot of the ailantus, and began a spiral march up- 
ward. I see him creep steadily round and round and 
