BIRDS FOR EVERYBODY 85 



markably trim and sleek, its upper parts of a 

 peculiarly warm cinnamon brown, its lower parts 

 yellowish, its tail tipped handsomely with yellow, 

 its head marked with black and adorned with a 

 truly magnificent top-knot ; as .great a lover of 

 cherries as any schoolboy, and one of the first 

 birds upon which the youthful taxidermist tries 

 his hand. Just now in early March the 

 waxwings are hereabout in great flocks (I saw 

 more than a hundred, surely, three days ago), 

 stuffing themselves, literally, with savin berries. 

 These large flocks will after a while disappear, 

 and some time later, in May, smaller companies 

 will arrive from the South and settle with us for 

 the summer, helping themselves to our cherries 

 in return for the swarms of insects of whose pre- 

 sence they have relieved us. If we see them thus 

 engaged, we shall do well to remember the Scrip- 

 ture text, " The laborer is worthy of his hire." 



This enumeration of birds, so strongly marked 

 that even a wayfaring man may easily name them, 

 might be extended indefinitely. It would be a 

 strange Massachusetts boy who did not know the 

 ruffed grouse (though he would probably call 

 him the partridge) and the Bob White ; the king- 

 bird, with his black and white plumage, his aerial 

 tumblings, and his dashing pursuit of the crow ; 

 the splendid scarlet tanager, fiery red, with black 



