110 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
two black lines, bounded in turn by the whitish 
Ime over the eyes. While I was watching them 
their attention was diverted by the barking of a 
gray squirrel in the woods, but they seemed to 
listen to him as they had me, with quiet interest, 
little more. 
A large flock of them stayed here for about a 
month, keeping always near the same spots, —a 
brush heap, an old dead tree-top, by which water 
and grain were kept for them, and a raspberry 
patch a few rods away. From the raspberry patch 
would come their quarrying note that Mr. Bick- 
nell speaks of, the peculiar chelink that gives the 
sound of a chisel slipping on stone, and which, 
when coming from a flock at a little distance, gives 
the effect of a quarry full of stone cutters. As 
I went through the patch they would fly up from 
among the bushes, some uttering a little surprised 
chree, some calling cheep as they flew noisily by, 
while others clung, crouching close, to the side of 
a stem, looking back to see who I was. 
The small slate-colored snowbirds, the juncos, 
were with the sparrows more than any other birds ; 
but the oven-bird, whose premises they had invaded, 
looked down on them with mild curiosity until it 
was time for her to go south; and later, a family 
of chewinks chased them off the fence by way of 
turnabout justice, though you are tempted to feel 
that the white-throats need little punishment. 
They have none of the petulance or arbitrariness 
