226 THE INVITATION. 



fat. The squirrels and mice lay by a supply of food 

 in their dens and retreats, but the birds, to a consider- 

 able extent, especially our winter residents, carry an 

 equivalent in their own systems, in the form of adipose 

 tissue. I killed a red-shouldered hawk, one December, 

 and on removing the skin found the body completely 

 encased in a coating of fat one quarter of an inch in 

 thickness. Not a particle of muscle was visible. This 

 coating not only serves as a protection against the 

 cold, but supplies the waste of the system, when food 

 is scarce, or fails altogether. 



The crows at this season are in the same condition. 

 It is estimated that a crow needs at least half a 

 pound of meat per day, but it is evident that for weeks 

 and months during the winter and spring, they must 

 subsist on a mere fraction of this amount. I have no 

 doubt a crow or hawk, when in their fall condition, 

 would live two weeks without a morsel of food passing 

 their beaks ; a domestic fowl will do as much. One 

 January, I unwittingly shut a hen under the floor of an 

 out-building, where not a particle of food could be 

 obtained, and where she was entirely unprotected from 

 the severe cold. When the luckless Dominick was dis- 

 covered, about eighteen days afterward, she was brisk 

 and lively, but fearfully pinched up, and as light as 

 a bunch of feathers. The slightest wind carried her 

 before it. But by judicious feeding she was soon 

 restored. 



The circumstance of the bluebirds being embold- 



