84 BIRDS AND POETS 
them permanent residents, and some of them visitors 
from the far north, yet there is but one genuine 
snow bird, nursling of the snow, and that is the 
snow bunting, a bird that seems proper to this sea- 
son, heralding the coming storm, sweeping by on 
bold and rapid wing, and calling and chirping as 
cheerily as the songsters of May. In its plumage 
it reflects the winter landscape, —an expanse of 
white surmounted or streaked with gray and brown; 
a field of snow with a line of woods or a tinge of 
stubble. It fits into the scene, and does not appear 
to lead a beggarly and disconsolate life, like most of 
our winter residents. During the ice-harvesting on 
the river, I see them flitting about among the gangs 
of men, or floating on the cakes of ice, picking and 
scratching amid the droppings of the horses. They 
love the stack and hay-barn in the distant field, 
where the farmer fodders his cattle upon the snow, 
and every red-root, ragweed, or pigweed left stand- 
ing in the fall adds to their winter stores. 
Though this bird, and one or two others, like 
the chickadee and nuthatch, are more or less com- 
placent and cheerful during the winter, yet no bird 
can look our winters in the face and sing, as do so 
many of the English birds. Several species in Great 
Britain, their biographers tell us, sing the winter 
through, except during the severest frosts; but with 
us, as far south as Virginia, and, for aught I know, 
much farther, the birds are tuneless at this season, 
The owls, even, do not hoot, nor the hawks scream. 
Among the birds that tarry briefly with us in the 
