A BIRD MEDLEY 81 
eat, and no doubt the majority of them would face 
our winters. I believe all the woodpeckers are win- 
ter birds, except the high-hole or yellow-hammer, 
and he obtains the greater part of his subsistence 
from the ground, and is not a woodpecker at all in 
his habits of feeding. Were it not that it has 
recourse to budding, the ruffed grouse would be 
obliged to migrate. The quail—a bird, no doubt, 
equally hardy, but whose food is at the mercy of 
the snow —is frequently cut off by our severe win- 
ters when it ventures to brave them, which is not 
often. Where plenty of the berries of the red cedar 
can be had, the cedar-bird will pass the winter in 
New York. The old ornithologists say the bluebird 
migrates to Bermuda; but in the winter of 1874-75, 
severe as it was, a pair of them wintered with me 
eighty miles north of New York city. They seem 
to have been decided in their choice by the attrac- 
tions of my rustic porch and the fruit of a sugar- 
berry tree (celtis —a kind of tree-lotus) that stood 
in front of it. They lodged in the porch and took 
their meals in the tree. Indeed, they became regu- 
lar lotus-eaters. Punctually at dusk they were in 
their places on a large laurel root in the top of 
the porch, whence, however, they were frequently 
routed by an indignant broom that was jealous of 
the neatness of the porch floor. But the pair would 
not take any hints of this kind, and did not give up 
their quarters in the porch or their lotus berries till 
spring. 
Many times during the winter the sugar-berry 
