WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



you may find it almost anjnvhere — skulking about 

 the currant and raspberry bushes in the village 

 gardens; taking a riotous bath in some pool by 

 the road-side, about whose rim, perhaps, the ice 

 still lingers; hastening to the top of a forest tree 

 to plume its dripping feathers and shake off at 

 once crystal water and a crystal song. 



Our favorite is the very first bird to greet us in 

 the spring — in fact, many remain through the win- 

 ter as far north even as Boston and Lake Erie. 

 It is thought by ornithologists, however, that the 

 winter song-sparrows are not the same individu- 

 als that were with us in summer, and w^hich have 

 gone southward, but are inhabitants of more north- 

 ern latitudes, that have come down with the snow- 

 birds ; and it is said that these are far hardier birds, 

 better and more versatile musicians. 



During the winter the song-sparrow remains, 

 quiet and busy, along the edges of the woods on 

 warm hill-sides in company with the spotted wood- 

 peckers and snow-birds, or associates with the 

 fowls in the barn-yard for a share of the house- 

 wife's bounty. But as the March snow melts, 

 and the sun sends genial warmth to awaken the 

 buds, he mounts the topmost twigs of the brush- 

 pile whose labyrinths he has spent the winter in 



145 



