252 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS. 



snow, resting upon a bed of solid ice formed by their settling 

 and packing. On the southern side, next the high fence, the 

 slope of the drift is steep and but little ice shows at the foot 

 an inch or two perhaps ; on the northern side of the drift, where 

 the sun strikes soonest as it looks down over the fence, the slope 

 is more gradual and a rim of ice four or five inches wide bor- 

 ders the drift. Everybody knows that in March there is always 

 a muddy line about a snow-drift that he must leap across. 

 This bank has soaked a line from one to three feet wide, ac- 

 cording to the slope of th'e soil, so that the mud is from three 

 inches deep to one inch deep around the snow-bank, according 

 to the amount of water that has been absorbed. The nar- 

 rower the width of the muddy line, the deeper the mud at 

 that point. 



Here we come to the point that appeals to the robin. Food 

 is hard to get in March. Every night the fields freeze up to 

 the edge of the drift, and the next day they are dry. But as 

 the snow melts, the waste water thaws the ground and leaves 

 a muddy line in the track by which it retreats, a soft space 

 which can be worked over easily by the birds, who gather to 

 pick out seeds and torpid insects or such bits of food as they 

 can find a little beneath the surface. In this way the robin 

 takes advantage of the forces of nature just as a man would, 

 arid turns even ice and snow to good account. 



Wise robin ! coming early, with a song, with a brave dis- 

 regard for winter only partly vanquished, and a good heart 

 to fare hard if need be, spring in the North would lack its 

 best delight if it missed your annual return. 



