196 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



silver far above timber-line, picking up the crumbs thrown 

 to them, as tame as pet chickens. 



In not a few instances, here as well as abroad, supersti- 

 tion brings profit to our birds. An honest old Pennsylva- 

 nia Dutchman, around whose barn clouds of swallows hov- 

 ered, told Wilson that he must on no account shoot any, 

 for if one was killed his cows would give bloody milk, and 

 that so long as the swallows inhabited the barns his build- 

 ings were in no danger of being struck by lightning. The 

 arrival of the fish-hawk or osprey on the New Jersey coast, 

 at the vernal equinox, notes the beginning of the fishing- 

 season. In some parts of New England the appearance of 

 the golden-winged woodpecker means the same thing, for 

 the bird is known as the "shad -spirit." The coming of 

 both is therefore hailed with satisfaction, and it is consid- 

 ered so "lucky" to have an osprey nesting upon one's 

 farm, that proprietors cherish its huge house in the lone 

 tree with uncommon care, recalling the reverent fostering 

 that a family of storks will enjoy from the peasant of the 

 Netherlands on whose roof their nest has been placed. 



The result of all these circumstances, as it seems to me, 

 is, that the aggregate army of singing birds in the United 

 States, east of the Mississippi, has been very considerably 

 enlarged during the last two centuries, and is still on the 



