NOVEMBER. 263 



imal life, dogmatic statements to the effect that, once win- 

 ter arrives, life flees the spot or retires to hibernacula, 

 would not so frequently mar the pages of our natural his- 

 tories. 



To return to the green meadow with its towering trees, 

 that had not yet acknowledged the sovereignty of winter. 

 I had first to marvel at the abundance of the birds. Their 

 voices filled the air, yet I could not find them. Save a 

 brown creeper or a blue nut-hatch, not a feather showed 

 in any tree nor in the tangle that now hid the treacherous 

 barbed- wire fence through which I had had to struggle. 

 As I progressed in my too eager search, I finally came, 

 very abruptly, upon the congregated songsters, an enor- 

 mous flock of cowpen birds. These are small, steel-blue 

 blackbirds, with a dozen common names and one hideous 

 scientific one. As single individuals, they excite little 

 interest, and their best efforts at singing fall far short of 

 success ; but when a thousand or more are gathered to- 

 gether, their united voices closely verge upon melody, 

 although never so thrilling as is a chorus of ten thousand 

 redwings. 



Desirous of watching these birds close at hand, as they 

 ran over the ground, reminding me of an excited colony 

 of ants, I approached far more cautiously than I had been 

 doing, and kept my hands behind me. My curiosity in- 

 creasing, I attempted to approach within a dozen steps of 

 them, and so, as usual, overstepped the mark. The birds 

 nearest me arose, each with a warning chirp, and in a 

 moment the broad landscape before me was shut from 

 view. Broader and higher grew this solid wall of birds, 

 and when its base line was lifted from the ground, the 

 curious spectacle of a retreating hill confronted me ; for I 

 can liken this moving mass unto nothing else. Suddenly 

 caught by a .passing breeze, more quickly than it had 

 veiled the landscape, the flock became a thin sheet, of 



