WINTER FROLICS. 53 
During the winter of 1891-1892 many a tramp 
was taken to the homes of the birds; and let me 
whisper that there were days when even they seemed 
to be dull and commonplace. ‘That is a frank con- 
cession for a bird-lover to make, but it is the truth. 
Sometimes these feathered actors have behaved in 
the most ordinary way, failing to perform a single 
trick that I had not seen a score of times before, and 
I have actually gone home without making a single 
entry in my note-book. But it has not always been 
so. ‘There, for example, was the twenty-second of 
January ; what an eventful day it was! The morn- 
ing of the twenty-first had been very cold, the mer- 
cury having sunk, probably in a fit of despair, to 
fourteen degrees below zero. During the day, how- 
ever, the weather grew considerably warmer; and 
when the twenty-second came, bright and clear, 
though still cold, one could take a jaunt with some 
comfort. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, 
and having put on my warm rubber boots, I waded 
out through the deep snow to the woods. ‘The se- 
vere weather had not discouraged the jolly juncos 
and tree-sparrows, or driven them to a warmer 
climate. They delight in cold weather; it seems to 
make them all the merrier. They were flitting about 
in the bushes and trees, chirping gayly, or, like my- 
self, were wading in the snow, although they had no 
woollen stockings for their little feet, much less warm 
rubber boots. What hardy creatures they are! For 
long distances I could trace their dainty tracks in 
the snow, winding in and out among the bushes and 
