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WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 189 
are quite as useful as my excellent lady’s apple- 
trees and pear-trees are to her. I watch them 
as they circle about in musical undulations, and 
then drop down again to finish their repast ; 
and I perceive that, in spite of its unsightli- 
ness, the chicory is not a weed, — its use has 
been discovered. 
In truth, the lover of birds soon ceases to 
feel the uncomeliness of plants of this sort; he 
even begins to have a peculiar and kindly in- 
terest in them. A piece of “‘ waste ground,” as 
it is called, an untidy garden, a wayside thicket 
of golden-rods and asters, pig-weed and even- 
ing primrose, — these come to be almost as 
attractive a sight to him as a thrifty field of 
wheat is to an agriculturalist. Taking his cue 
from the finches, he separates plants into two 
grand divisions, — those that shed their seeds 
in the fall, and those that hold them through 
the winter. The latter, especially if they are 
of a height to overtop a heavy snow-fall, are 
friends in need to his clients; and he is certain 
to have marked a few places within the range 
of his every-day walks where, thanks to some- 
body’s shiftlessness, perhaps, they have been 
allowed to flourish. 
It is not many years since there were several 
such winter gardens of the birds in Common- 
wealth Avenue, — vacant house-lots overgrown 
