172 NOTES BY THE WAY. 



is full of radiant warmth, and the air of a half articu- 

 late murmur and awakening. How still the morning 

 is ! It is at such times that we discover what music 

 there is in the souls of the little slate-colored snow- 

 birds. How they squeal, and chatter, and chirp, and 

 trill, always in scattered troops of fifty or a hundred, 

 filling the air with a fine sibilant chorus ! That joy- 

 ous and childlike " chew," " chew," " chew," is very 

 expressive. Through this medley of finer songs and 

 calls, there is shot, from time to time, the clear, strong 

 note of the meadow-lark. It comes from some field 

 or tree farther away, and cleaves the air like an ar- 

 row. The reason why the birds always appear first 

 in the morning, and not in the afternoon, is that in 

 migrating they travel by night, and stop, and feed 

 and disport themselves by day. They come by the 

 owl train, and are here before we are up in the 

 morning. 



A LONE QUEEN. 



ONCE, while walking in the woods, I saw quite 

 large nest in the top of a pine-tree. On climbing up 

 to it, I found that it had originally been a crow's 

 nest. Then a red squirrel had appropriated it ; he 

 had filled up the cavity with the fine inner bark of 

 the red cedar, and made himself a dome-shaped nest, 

 ^pon the crow's foundation of coarse twigs. It ii 

 probable that the flying squirrel, or the white-footed 



