LANDLORD TO THE BIRDS n 



larks (rare visitors with us). As the snow rapidly 

 melted, I kept food scattered about. In a few days 

 the lawn was visible, but the birds were still there, 

 and in the morning when I got up, there would be 

 no less than a hundred of them scratching and 

 pecking in the grass. I stopped putting out food 

 now, but they did not stop pecking. In the section 

 where they worked, the lawn is spoiled late each 

 summer by crab grass, an abominable annual, which 

 spreads low and ripens in spite of the mower, thus 

 seeding itself. That flock of birds was after the 

 seed and doing me a valuable service. A little feed- 

 ing at a time when they needed it kept them on my 

 premises until they were ready to migrate north- 

 ward. 



Outside my kitchen door stood an apple-tree. 

 Just beyond this tree was a thick stand of pines, 

 partly on my land, partly across the fence on my 

 neighbor's. All winter long a large number of 

 birds rode out the severest storms in the safe 

 shelter of these evergreens, and came to the apple- 

 tree for a perch before darting down to the window- 

 ledge for sunflower seeds and suet. Our all- winter 

 guests included in one season chickadees, white- 

 breasted nuthatches, a pair of golden-crowned 

 kinglets, tree-sparrows, a pair of downy wood- 

 peckers (their third winter), a pair of red-breasted 

 nuthatches (their third winter also), several blue 

 jays, and a cock pheasant, which stalked up in a 

 stately manner over the snow nearly every morning. 

 The chickadees would alight on our fingers, our 

 heads and shoulders, and even hop through the 

 open door or window into the house and eat from a 



