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seasons go, life even for the winter birds is comfort- 

 able and abundant. 



The fence-rows and old pastures are full of berries 

 that will keep the fires burning in the quail and par- 

 tridge during the bitterest weather. Last February, 

 however, I came upon two partridges in the snow, 

 dead of hunger and cold. It was after an extremely 

 long severe spell. But this was not all. These two 

 birds since fall had been feeding regularly in the 

 dried fodder corn that stood shocked over the field. 

 One day all the corn was carted away. The birds 

 found their supply of food suddenly cut off, and, un- 

 used to foraging the fence-rows and tangles for wild 

 seeds, they seem to have given up the struggle at 

 once, although within easy reach of plenty. 



Hardly a minute's flight away was a great thicket 

 of dwarf sumac covered with berries ; there were 

 bayberries, rose hips, greenbrier, bittersweet, black 

 alder, and checkerberries — hillsides of the latter — 

 that they might have found. These were hard fare, 

 doubtless, after an unstinted supply of sweet corn ; 

 but still they were plentiful, and would have been 

 sufficient had the birds made use of them. 



The smaller birds of the winter, like the tree 

 i6 



