Odds and Ends 129 



find a flock of myrtle warblers in the woods so late in the 

 season. They had braved the storms of the preceding 

 week, and were as chipper and active as myrtle warblers 

 could be. But their employment was a still greater 

 surprise. They were darting about in the air among the 

 treetops, as well as amid the bushes in the deep ravine, 

 catching insects on the wing. That insects should be flying 

 after the wintry weather of the previous week was still 

 more surprising than that the warblers should be here to 

 dine upon them. Soon after that day, however, the little 

 yellow-rumps must have taken the wing route to a more 

 genial climate, for they were seen no more that winter. 



Of a more permanent character was the residence of 

 the jolly j uncos, which dwelt all winter in northeastern 

 Kansas, let the weather be never so lowering. Always 

 active and alert, flitting from bush to weed, and from the 

 snow-carpeted ground to the gnarled oak saplings, now 

 pilfering a dinner of wild berries and now a luncheon of 

 weed seeds, they seemed to generate enough warmth in 

 their trig little bodies to defy old Boreas to do his best. 

 Water flowing from melting snow must be ice-cold, yet 

 the juncos plunged into the crystal pools and rinsed their 

 plumes with as much apparent relish as if their lavatory 

 were tepid instead of icy, and as if balmy instead of nip- 

 ping winds were blowing. 



One day I watched a member of this family taking his 

 dinner of wild grapes. Finding a dark red cluster, he 

 would pick off the juiciest berry he could reach, press it 

 daintily between his white mandibles for a few moments, 



