WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



tempestuous weather?" is a question often asked 

 me. 



The time is not long passed when it was uni- 

 versally believed that many of them hibernated 

 especially the swallows burying themselves 

 in the mud like frogs, or curling up in holes in 

 rocks like the bats; and the common phenomenon 

 of the appearance of a few summer birds during 

 "warm spells" in winter was assumed to prove 

 that they had been torpid, but had waked up under 

 the genial warmth, as bats often do. It was not 

 many years ago that I saw in an English news- 

 paper a letter from a man who claimed to have 

 found a hedge-sparrow (I think) torpid somewhere 

 in the mud. But the search for proofs of this 

 theory discovered that the birds supposed to hiber- 

 nate migrated, while, of the birds which remained 

 in this latitude through the cold months, we saw 

 more in warm, fine weather, for the natural reason 

 that then they forsook the sheltered hollows and 

 cosey recesses of the woods where they had retreated 

 during stormy days, and came out into the sun- 

 light. 



Dense cedars and the close - set branches of 

 small spruces and other evergreens afford them 

 good shelter, and thickets of brambles are made 



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