HARD FARE 57 



up from beneath the snow, always hitting the spot 

 accurately. A pair of flying squirrels which I ob- 

 served one season in an unoccupied country-house 

 had a pile of large, fine chestnuts near their nest 

 till spring, when the nuts disappeared. They prob- 

 ably kept them till the period of greatest scarcity, 

 and until their young made demands upon them. 



The woodpeckers and chickadees doubtless find 

 food as plentiful during severe winters as during 

 more open ones, because they confine their search 

 almost entirely to the trunks and branches of trees, 

 where the latter pick up the eggs of insects and 

 various microscopic tidbits, and where the former 

 find their accustomed fare of eggs and larvae also. 

 An enamel of ice upon the trees alone puts an 

 embargo upon their supplies. At such seasons the 

 ruffed grouse "buds" or goes hungry; while the 

 snowbirds, snow buntings, Canada sparrows, gold- 

 finches, shore larks, and redpolls are dependent 

 upon the weeds and grasses that rise above the 

 snow, and upon the litter of the haystack and barn- 

 yard. Neither do the deep snows and the severe 

 cold materially affect the supplies of the rabbit. 

 The deeper the snow, the nearer he is brought to 

 the tops of the tender bushes and shoots. I see in 

 my walks where he has cropped the tops of the 

 small, bushy, soft maples, cutting them slantingly 

 as you would do with a knife, and quite as smoothly. 

 Indeed, the mark was so like that of a knife that, 

 notwithstanding the tracks, it was only after the 

 closest scrutiny that I was convinced it was the 



