46 IN BIRD LAND. 
pursue their untiring quest for food, he doubtless 
would have written in his Proverbs: “Go to the 
titmouse, thou sluggard; consider his ways, and be 
wise.” 
Associated with the titmice, kinglets, and nut- 
hatches were the downy woodpeckers, which belong 
to the artisan family of the bird community, being 
hammerers, drillers, and chisellers all combined. 
They pursue their chosen calling most sedulously. 
“What ’s the use of having a vocation if you don’t 
follow it?’? you may almost hear them say as they 
cant their heads to one side and peep under the 
bark for a tidbit, or hammer vigorously at a crevice 
in which a worm is embedded. The hairy wood- 
peckers, which are somewhat larger, are more erratic 
in their movements, none having been seen from 
the autumn until the latter part of January. At 
this date I heard their loud, nervous C/z-2-7-7-7, as 
they dashed from tree to tree apparently in great 
excitement. 
I cannot forbear contrasting this winter with the 
previous one. In the winter of 1889-1890 the song- 
sparrows never left us at all, but sang on almost 
every pleasant day when I went to the woods or 
marsh ; but this winter, which was somewhat colder, 
they went to other climes, and left the fringes of the 
pools and the thickets in the swamp tenantless, 
songless, and desolate. In 1889-1890 the cardinal 
grossbeaks whistled every month, making the woods 
ring even in January; this winter not a single note 
was heard from their resonant throats. I had just 
