182 NOTES BY THE WAY. 



at a stand-still. Dig one out during hibernation 

 (Audubon did so), and you find it a mere inanimate 

 ball, that suffers itself to be moved and rolled about 

 without showing signs of awakening. But bring it 

 in by the fire, and it presently unrolls and opens its 

 eyes, and crawls feebly about, and if left to itself will 

 seek some dark hole or corner, roll itself up again, 

 and resume its former condition. 



A GOOD SEASON FOR THE BIRDS. 



THE season of 1880 seems to have been excep- 

 tionally favorable to the birds. The warm early 

 spring, the absence of April snows and of long, cold 

 rains in May and June, indeed, the exceptional 

 heat and dryness of these months, and the freedom 

 from violent storms and tempests throughout the 

 summer, all worked together for the good of the 

 birds. Their nests were not broken up or torn from 

 the trees, nor their young chilled and destroyed by 

 the wet and the cold. The drenching, protracted 

 -ains that make the farmer's seed rot or lie dormant 

 in the ground in May or June, and the summer 

 tempests that uproot the trees or cause them to lash 

 and bruise their foliage, always bring disaster to the 

 birds. As a result of our immunity from these 

 things the past season, the small birds in the fall 

 tfere perhaps never more abundant. Indeed, I nevef 



