THE MINUTE-MAN IN A SNOWDRIFT. 45 



and it is possible that many individuals here in 

 the winter have decamped already. Two crows, 

 two chickadees, two brown creepers, six rob- 

 ins, four quail, constituted my list for the day. 

 The robins passed overhead about three o'clock, 

 flying high, fast, and due north. They may not 

 have stopped short of the New Hampshire hills, 

 for which they seemed to be aiming. The quail 

 were feeding on barberries, and judging by their 

 tracks there seemed to have been eight or ten of 

 them at work. A quail's footprint looks like 

 the barb and part of the shaft of an arrow 

 pointing in the direction from which the bird 

 has come. When they hurry, their tracks are 

 run together, forming a continuous line of per- 

 petuated panic. The quail were quite noisy on 

 Saturday, making a harsh call unlike their " bob, 

 bob-white." During the coming week or fort- 

 night the number of kinds of birds near Boston 

 is likely to increase. I have long been hoping 

 to see crossbills, redpoll linnets, siskins, red 

 bellied nuthatches and others of the winter 

 birds, but this is an off year for them. Now 

 I am looking for redwing blackbirds, purple 

 grackles and rusty grackles, song sparrows, 

 swamp sparrows, fox sparrows, purple finches, 

 pewees and other early migrants. 



About sunset on Saturday I was in a grove of 

 venerable red cedars. The lower half of the 



