48 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



haunt the home of Thoreau. Just outside of 

 Bedford streets I sat down on a stone wall to 

 bask in the warm sunshine. The mercury stood 

 at 68 in the shade, yet a snowdrift close by was 

 four and a half feet in depth. The bell of the 

 old meeting-house was tolling, and distance 

 made its voice sweet. It sometimes seems as 

 though church bells attract the birds. In the 

 perfect stillness of the air I could hear many 

 bird notes. A yellowhammer was calling per- 

 sistently from a distant maple ; a bluebird sang 

 in the nearest orchard, and six noisy crows were 

 flying to and fro in a ploughed field examining 

 spots of earth left bare by the receding snow. 

 Presently a flock of three blue jays entered the 

 orchard and seemed to find satisfactory food in 

 the apples left on the ground last autumn. 



Between Bedford and Concord I saw eleven 

 more blue jays, a dozen more crows, thirteen 

 chickadees, five tree-sparrows and the tracks 

 of a flock of ten quail. There were also many 

 crow tracks in the snow. They are larger 

 than those of quail and the print of the long 

 hind toe is very marked. The feature of the 

 day was the repeated occurrence of blue jays. 

 The birds were noisy and restless, and most of 

 them were moving northward. The country 

 through which I passed was* level and uninter- 

 esting. Little timber was in sight, and most of 



