aa BIRDS AND POETS 
to-morrow is the first day of March. About the 
same time I notice the potatoes in the cellar show 
signs of sprouting. They, too, find out so quickly 
when spring is near. Spring comes by two routes, 
—jin the air and underground, and often gets here 
by the latter course first. She undermines Winter 
when outwardly his front is nearly as bold as ever. 
I have known the trees to bud long before, by out- 
ward appearances, one would expect them to. The 
frost was gone from the ground before the snow was 
gone from the surface. 
But Winter hath his birds also; some of them 
such tiny bodies that one wonders how they with- 
stand the giant cold,— but they do. Birds live on 
highly concentrated food,—the fine seeds of weeds 
and grasses, and the eggs and larve of insects. Such 
food must be very stimulating and heating. A giz- 
zard full of ants, for instance, what spiced and sea- 
soned extract is equal to that? Think what virtue 
there must be in an ounce of gnats or mosquitoes, 
or in the fine mysterious food the chickadee and 
brown creeper gather in the winter woods! It is 
doubtful if these birds ever freeze when fuel enough 
can be had to keep their little furnaces going. And, 
as they get their food entirely from the limbs and 
trunks of trees, like the woodpeckers, their supply 
is seldom interfered with by the snow. The worst 
annoyance must be the enameling of ice our winter 
woods sometimes get. 
Indeed, the food question seems to be the only 
serious one with the birds. Give them plenty to 
