THE INVITATION. 247 



As the paramount question in the life of a bird is 

 the question of food, perhaps the most serious troubles 

 our feathered neighbors encounter are early in the 

 spring, after the supply of fat with which nature 

 stores every corner and by-place of the system, there- 

 by anticipating the scarcity of food, has been ex- 

 hausted, and the sudden and severe changes in the 

 weather which occur at this season make unusual de- 

 mands upon their vitality. No doubt many of the 

 earlier birds die from starvation and exposure at this 

 season. Among a troop of Canada sparrows, which 

 I came upon one March day, all of them evidently 

 much reduced, one was so feeble that I caught it in 

 my hand. 



During the present season, a very severe cold spell, 

 the first week in March, drove the bluebirds to seek 

 shelter about the houses and out-buildings. As night 

 approached, and the winds and the cold increased, they 

 seemed filled with apprehension and alarm, and in 

 the outskirts of the city came about the windows and 

 doors, crept behind the blinds, clung to the gutters 

 and beneath the cornice, flitted from porch to porch, 

 and from house to house, seeking in vain for some 

 safe retreat from the cold. The street pump, which 

 Uad a small opening, just over the handle, was an at- 

 traction which they could not resist. And yet they 

 seemed aware of the insecurity of the position ; for, 

 Ho sooner would they stow themselves away into the 

 interior of the pump, to the number of six or eight, 

 than they would rush out again, as if apprehensive of 



