BIRDS AT YULE-TIDE. 245 



seen liis face, I should have met an impish glare 

 in his small yellow eyes, and a look about his 

 mouth suggestive of sharp bites. The screech 

 owl fears the barred owl as much as a robin 

 does ; so when I hooted like his big cousin, and 

 spun my hat into the air over him, he flew down 

 almost to the ground, made a sharp angle, and 

 rose into a tree at a little distance. After I had 

 followed him from tree to tree for several min- 

 utes, he finally succeeded in dodging me, and I 

 left the orchard to the quiet of the winter's 

 night. 



In the morning, when I rolled into the pile 

 of leaves by the sunny side of the wall, the day 

 seemed bereft of incident and color ; but as I 

 ran down the frozen hillside, hurrying more to 

 regain warmth than to gain time, the day ap- 

 peared, in retrospect, to be well filled with inci- 

 dent and life. Not only had there been crows, 

 jays, flickers, chickadees, kinglets, and a junco 

 bvisy about their respective tasks of food-finding, 

 but the charming pine grosbeaks had gathered 

 the ash seeds from the snow, a few feet from 

 where, as soon as moonlight replaced sunshine. 

 Scops set himself to gather his nightly harvest 

 of mice. Vegetation, as a rule, is dormant in 

 winter ; most of the insect world selects winter 

 for its period of repose and transformation ; 

 snow, ice, and lack of food drive certain birds 



