SNO W-BIRDS. 243 



From the cracks and crannies there 

 Startled each from hidden lair, 

 Crept and crawled, above, below, 

 Threatened me with direst woe 

 If I chanced to cross their path, 

 If I dared excite their wrath. 

 From a distant nook afar, 

 Gleaming like a double star, 

 Eyes of owlet, full of fire, 

 Questioned my insane desire 

 Here within the tree to stand, 

 Trespassing on wild-life's land. 

 Why not in the outer world? 

 This the question at me hurled. 

 But I stubbornly refused 

 To be other than amused. 

 Nor till night I bent my way 

 Homeward, hermit for the day. 



IF my memory serves me no tricks, I have 

 never known an October without snow-birds. 

 This year, they appeared as early as the second 

 day ; and as I have seen them daily since, it has 

 been a source of wonder that they should ever 

 have been called " snow-birds." Peter Kalm, 

 writing of them in 1749, remarks : " A small kind 

 of birds which the Swedes call snow-bird and 

 the English chuck-bird, came into the houses 



