WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 209 
seems to enjoy his bad temper), and, all in all, 
is not to be lightly esteemed in a time when 
bright feathers are scarce. 
As for the jay’s sable relatives, they are the 
most conspicuous birds in the winter landscape. 
You may possibly walk to Brookline and back 
without hearing a chickadee, or a blue jay, or 
even a goldfinch; but you will never miss sight 
and sound of the crows. Black against white 
is a contrast hard to be concealed. Sometimes 
they are feeding in the street, sometimes stalk- 
ing about the marshes; but oftenest they are 
on the ice in the river, near the water’s edge. 
For they know the use of friends, although they 
have never heard of Lord Bacon’s “ last fruit of 
friendship,” and would hardly understand what 
that provident philosopher meant by saying 
that ‘the best way to represent to life the man- 
ifold use of friendship is to cast and see how 
many things there are which a man cannot do 
himself.” How aptly their case illustrates the 
not unusual coexistence of formal ignorance 
with real knowledge! Having their Southern 
brother’s fondness for fish without his skill in 
catching it, they adopt a plan worthy of the 
great essayist himself, — they court the society 
of the gulls ; and with a temper eminently phil- 
osophical, not to say Baconian, they cheerfully 
sit at their patrons’ second table. From the 
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