OUR WINTER BIRDS. 137 



Birds of prey themselves scarcely need such protection 

 from one another, yet some of them regularly exchange 

 their summer plumage for a winter dress of lighter and 

 (in the general white of the landscape) less conspicuous 

 tints ; but this may operate to their advantage in the re- 

 verse way of allowing them to attain a closer, because un- 

 observed, approach to their quarry. This leaves us, among 

 the land-birds, only the bright red-poll and the wax wings 

 as exceptions to the supposed rule that the plumages of 

 winter birds are colored in a way directly favorable to their 

 special preservation at that season of augmented danger. 

 They are cases of which I have no account to give other 

 than that let me beg the reader charitably to believe 

 these are the exceptions which " favor the rule." 



But against one persecutor no concealment of natural 

 color or artful device avails, and the brains of the pretty 

 songsters, so full of wit to avoid other enemies and provide 

 for each day's need, are his choice repast. This dainty 

 tyrant wears an overcoat of bluish ash trimmed with black 

 and white, a vest of white marked with fine, wavy, trans- 

 verse lines, white knee-breeches, and black stockings. His 

 eyes are dark and piercing ; his nose Napoleonic ; his fore- 

 head high arid white ; his mustache as heavy and black as 

 that of any cavalier in Spain. This Mephistopheles among 



