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shouldered hawk, one December, and on re- 

 moving the skin, found the body completely 

 encased in a coating of fat one quarter of 

 an inch in thickness. Not a particle of 

 muscle was visible. This coating not only 

 serves as a protection against the cold, but 

 supplies the waste of the system, when food 

 is scarce, or fails altogether. 



The crows at this season are in the same 

 condition. It is estimated that a crow needs 

 at least half a pound of meat per day ; but it 

 is evident that for weeks and months during 

 the winter and spring, they must subsist on 

 a mere fraction of this amount. I have no 

 doubt a crow or hawk, when in their fall 

 condition, would live two weeks without a 

 morsel of food passing their beaks ; a do- 

 mestic fowl will do as much. One January, 

 I unwittingly shut a hen under the floor of 

 an out-building, where not a particle of food 

 could be obtained, and where she was en- 

 tirely unprotected from the severe cold. 

 When the luckless Dominick was discovered, 

 about eighteen days afterward, she was brisk 

 and lively, but fearfully pinched up, and as 

 light as a bunch of feathers. The slightest 

 wind carried her before it. But by judicious 

 feeding she was soon restored. 



