WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



scape, than the winter birds, whose bright forms 

 alone diversify the bare and colorless world, and 

 whose cheery notes alone break the stillness and 

 apparent immobility of Nature. They always 

 carry a bit of the June sunshine about with them, 

 and, dropping it from their wings, like seed, wherever 

 they flit, seem thus to preserve the season through 

 the ravages of winter, to which all else succumbs. 

 Some words about them may, therefore, help to keep 

 the sense of summer alive in our hearts through 

 this midnight of the year. 



Most persons are surprised when told of the 

 large number of these feathered friends which 

 begin the new year with us; for in January, in 

 the near neighborhood of New York city, over 

 fifty species appear with more or less regularity. 

 They comprise two classes : those which reside in 

 our fields the year round, like the bluejay; and 

 such, like the snow-flake, as are driven to our 

 milder climate by the severity of a Northern winter 

 that even their arctic-bred, hardy constitutions 

 are unable to endure. The members of the latter 

 class visit us in varying numbers, but are especially 

 numerous in snowy seasons. 



It is probably less a fear of the dreadful tem- 

 perature, even in the frigid zones, which compels 



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