316 WINTER. 



into the snow. There is but one exception, the meat-bird, 

 or moose-bird (Garrulus Canadensis). No amount of cold 

 keeps this most impudent of birds at home when meat is 

 to be got. So far from being afraid of man, he follows 

 him through the woods, enters his camp through the 

 smoke hole in the roof, and almost takes the bit out of 

 his mouth. I have killed one, "pour encourager les 

 autres." His comrades stolidly looked on, and by-and-by 

 picked his bones. They eat anything. Meat, bread, pro- 

 visions of any kind nothing comes amiss to the robbers ; 

 soap they are very partial to. When the hunter stops for 

 dinner, and lights his fire, no bird is to be seen or heard ; 

 hardly, however, is the frying-pan on the fire, when moose- 

 bird makes his appearance, and, chuckling with joy, 

 perches on a bough within 5 or 6 feet of the pan. 

 They eat the baits out of the hunter's traps, and the 

 trapped animals. They flock in numbers to districts where 

 moose have been slaughtered, and eat and fight the live- 

 long day. They make several different sounds, each one 

 more discordant than the other. Late in the fall, when 

 trout go to shallow water to spawn, the moose-bird takes 

 a hint from the kingfisher, and feasts on small trout. I 

 have seen a dog feeding on one end of a piece of meat, a 

 moose-bird on the other. It is generally supposed that 

 birds cannot smell, but the moose-bird must be an excep- 

 tion, for in thick woods he cannot see ; and how, then, 

 does he find meat so quickly ! Whilst on the one hand 

 they have, for their size, such a vast stowage for provisions, 

 on the other hand they can fast for extraordinarily long 

 periods. They fight like tigers. A servant of mine 

 caught three in steel traps, and cruelly put them all toge- 



