WINTER FROLICS. 45 
last year they made their appearance in these woods, 
remaining a week or more, and then were not seen 
until about the middle of August. Again they dis- 
appeared, returning in October, and then hied away 
once more and did not come back until January. 
Besides, at one time they associated with the eastern 
colony of birds and at another with the western. 
Like some “ featherless bipeds, ’’ — Lowell’s expres- 
sion,— they seemed to be of a roving disposition. 
A winter ago they occasionally stirred the elves and 
brownies of the woodland into transports by their 
sweet, sad minor whistle, but this winter they were 
provokingly chary of their musical performances. 
For ever-presentness, however, both summer and 
winter, the crested titmice and white-breasted nut- 
hatches bear off the palm. Many droll tricks they 
perform. One day in January a titmouse scurried 
from the ground into a sapling; he held a large 
grain of corn between his mandibles, and, after 
flitting about a few moments, hopped to a dead 
branch that lay across the twigs, and deftly pushed 
the grain into the end of the bough. I stepped 
closer, when he tried to secure the hidden morsel ; 
but my presence frightened him away, and I climbed 
the sapling, drew the broken branch toward me, 
and peered into the splintered end; yes, there was 
the grain of corn wedged firmly into a crevice. The 
provident little fellow! He had secreted the morsel 
for a stormy day when it would be impossible to 
procure food on the ground. If Solomon had 
watched these thrifty, industrious birds, as they 
