DECEMBER. 



353 



rations have now ceased, and they are not immediately 

 pressed with work, some time is devoted to excursions of 

 friendship and pleasure ; and even the travelling which 

 business requires is made an agreeable recreation. 



C. How do the farmers employ themselves during the 

 winter season generally ? 



F. The feeding and tending of their cattle and other 

 stock, a daily employment, consumes much of the short days, 

 and the supplying of the immense fires which we are compel- 

 led to keep up, makes considerable inroads upon the residue. 

 The grain is threshed, and cleaned, and carried to market, 

 with other produce. After this, or at intervals, the great- 

 est portion of the winter's labour is performed in the forest, 

 in felling and splitting cedars for fencing-rails, cutting hard- 

 wood for the twelvemonth's supply of fuel, (which, with the 

 drawing it to the homestead on large sleds, forms no small 

 part of a winter's work,) and cutting and drawing logs for the 

 saw-mill. So that no part of a Canadian farmer's time can 

 be considered without employment, though in winter he does 

 contrive to snatch a few days from toil, to devote them to 

 amusement. 



C. I see a little bird creeping up the perpendicular 

 trunk of a maple tree ; it looks just like a mouse in size, 

 colour, and manners : is it a species of Nuthatch ? 



F. No : our Nuthatches are all of a light blue colour 

 above ; this is the Brown Creeper (Certhia Familiaris}, a 

 bird much resembling that family in appearance and habits, 

 but with a slender curved bill. It does not appear to be 

 common with us, or if it is it must be very shy, as I have 

 seldom seen it. It crawls about the trunks and limbs in 

 every direction with great agility, in search of small insects, 

 which are lodged in crevices of the bark, and similar situ- 

 ations. 



