C^xxBtmaB in t^c TlJoobs 



ering chicken or frost grapes, plump clusters of blue- 

 black berries of the grecnbrier, and limbs of the 

 smooth winterberry bending with their flaming fruit. 

 There were bushes of crimson ilex, too, trees of fruit- 

 ing dogwood and holly, cedars in berry, dwarf sumac 

 and seedy sedges, while patches on the wood slopes 

 uncovered by the sun were spread with trailing par- 

 tridge berry and the coral-fruited wintergreen. I had 

 eaten part of my dinner with the 'possum ; I picked a 

 quantity of these wintergreen berries, and continued 

 my meal with the birds. And they also had enough 

 and to spare. 



Among the birds in the tangle was a large flock 

 of northern fox sparrows, whose vigorous and con- 

 tinuous scratching in the bared spots made a most 

 lively and cheery commotion. Many of them were 

 splashing about in tiny pools of snow-water, melted 

 partly by the sun and partly by the warmth of their 

 bodies as they bathed. One would hop to a softening 

 bit of snow at the base of a tussock, keel over and 

 begin to flop, soon sending up a shower of sparkling 

 drops from his rather chilly tub. A winter snow- 

 water bath seemed a necessity, a luxury indeed, for 

 they all indulged, splashing with the same purpose 



29 



