OUR WINTER. BIRDS. 133° 
ary lead them abroad when the owls are mostly flying, and 
on moonlight nights these prowlers get many a good meal, 
no doubt. 
It would seem, therefore, as if the chances of death pre- 
sented to the lesser winter birds by scarcity of food, rigor 
of climate, hawks by day and owls by night, outnumbered 
the chances of life offered by their alertness and enduring 
vitality. But there are some additional circumstances fa- 
vorable to their escape from the latter fate, their resources 
against starvation and freezing having already been ex- 
plained. One of these circumstances is the vigilance of 
the birds: they never are forgetful. Sometimes their curi- 
osity leads them into danger, or an enemy like man, which 
they do not suspect, may approach them by being very 
quiet; but a hawk could never insinuate himself into a 
sparrow’s good eraces, nor could an owl win his confidence ; 
both must trust to surprising him or overtaking him in an 
open race, which is about as difficult as “catching a weasel 
asleep.” Then the hiding-places of the birds in hollow 
trees, crannies in walls, dense thickets, and brush-piles, dur- 
ing the night and in bad weather, are such as afford excel- 
lent security from their nocturnal winged enemies, although 
quite accessible to foxes and weasels. It is a curious fact 
that fourteen or fifteen of our January birds choose hollows 
. 
