WINTER FROLICS. 47 
begun to fear that the pair which had greeted 
me so frequently the previous winter had been 
slaughtered by some caterer to the shameful fashions 
of the day, when, on the twenty-eighth of January, 
I was gladdened by the sight of them in company 
with several of their relatives or acquaintances and 
a bevy of tree-sparrows. Where had the grossbeaks 
been since November? And if they had gone south, 
why did they return from their visit so early in the 
season? Or perhaps a still more pertinent inquiry 
would be, Why had they gone away at all? It is 
difficult, however, to explain grossbeak caprice or 
ratiocination. 
What do the birds do when it rains? No doubt, 
when the rain pours in torrents, they find plenty 
of coverts in the thick bushes or in the cavities 
of trees; but when the rain falls gently, and I make 
my way to their haunts, as I often do, they flit 
about as industriously as ever in their quest for 
food, only stopping now and then to shake the 
pearly drops from their water-proof cloaks. In 
such humid weather the wood-choppers in the forest 
— the human ones— stop their work and seek 
shelter. Not so these feathered workers, who gayly 
continue their playful toil, and exclaim exultingly, 
Pais t this’a jolly rain?” 
In another chapter mention has been made of 
the provident habits of certain birds, especially the 
titmice and nuthatches, in laying by a winter store. 
As if to confirm what has been said, one winter day 
a nuthatch went scudding up and down the trunk of 
