196 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
ready to question whether, indeed, ‘‘ eyes were 
made for seeing.” The “snow-flakes”” wear 
protective colors, and, like most other animals, 
are of opinion that, for such as lack the receipt 
of fern-seed, there is often nothing safer than 
to sit still. The worse the weather, the less 
timorous they are, for with them, as with wiser 
heads, one thought drives out another; and it 
is nothing uncommon, when times are hard, to 
see them stay quietly upon the fence while a 
sleigh goes past, or suffer a foot passenger to 
come again and again within a few yards. 
It gives a lively touch to the imagination to 
overtake these beautiful strangers in the middle 
of Beacon Street; particularly if one has lately 
been reading about them in some narrative of 
Siberian travel. Coming from so far, associa- 
ting in flocks, with costumes so becoming and 
yet so unusual, they might be expected to at- 
tract universal notice, and possibly to get into 
the newspapers. But there is a fashion even 
about seeing; and of a thousand persons who 
may take a Sunday promenade over the Muill- 
dam, while these tourists from the North Pole 
are there, it is doubtful whether a dozen are 
aware of their presence. Birds feeding in the 
street ? Yes, yes; English sparrows, of course 5 
we haven’t any other birds in Boston nowa- 
days, you know. 
