190 GLEANINGS FROM NATURE. 



life and sprightliness. A bluebird first. Then a 

 flock of juncoes or snowbirds, fresh from their sum- 

 mer home in the far north, perhaps tarrying for food 

 before they go farther south, perhaps come to stay 

 with us, to cheer us up with their chirp and twitter 

 when King Boreas with his attendant train of ice and 

 snow, of bare trees and almost voiceless nature, will 

 rule over us. Then the familiar song sparrow dodg- 

 ing from fence crack, to brush pile and back again, 

 his streaked breast ever a sign of his identity. Then 

 a company of grass finches showing the pure white of 

 their tail feathers only as they fly ; preparing for their 

 southward journey by thus flocking together from 

 their various nesting places. Then a sound "ha-ha 

 ha-ha" and a trio of crows, uttering their weird 

 laugh, went sailing southward, seeking, no doubt, 

 their morning meal on the commons near the city. 

 Next, a bevy of meadow larks were flushed, and flying 

 across the road they glided, as it were, down an in- 

 clined plane until they reached the ground, much as a 

 flying-squirrel travels from tree top to the earth below. 

 By this time I had reached the canal and within 

 the confines of its banks, where the killing effects of 

 the recent frosts were not so visible, birds were plenti- 

 ful. A pair of white-bellied nuthatches ran industri- 

 ously to and fro on the branches of an elm beneath 

 which I rested. They peered into every cranny and 

 looked beneath every piece of loose bark in their care- 

 ful search for the luckless insects which were destined 

 to serve them for dinner. At short intervals they 

 talked to one another in two brief words, "kah 

 kah;" when frightened, repeating them very rapidly, 



