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JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 157 
And what wonderful wings! Strong, soft, beautiful ; but withal, to 
the wild creatures of the wood, the sure, swift and inevitable minis- 
ters of death.” 
The second division of the lecture, dealing with the winter 
months, was devoted in the first place to the consideration of the 
evidence of the snow regarding animal life in winter. The common 
winter birds were then described, including among others the red- 
bellied woodpecker, the juncos and tree sparrows, the chickadee, 
nuthatch and kinglet, and the cedar wax wing. The lecturer con- 
cluded with an interesting account of the pine grosbeaks, the 
wonderful red birds of the north, who occasionally spend a part of 
the winter in Southern Canada when the weather is severe. The 
song of some of these birds in captivity was described as follows: 
“So far I was familiar only with their rather plaintive call or 
twitter, and I fancied that, as with the cedar wax wings, they had in 
reality no song. But one morning in late February as I put my 
head into the loft I heard from the top of the little evergreen that I 
had set up the delicate tinkle of a bird’s song. I listened. Sure 
enough! I could not be mistaken—tinkle, tinkle, tinkle! At 
first it seemed to me like the purling of a little brook in the leafy 
summer woods ; and then as it sounded clearer it seemed like the 
purest notes of the cat birds’ song among the evergreen boughs on 
an evening in June; and then I caught the sweet note of the thrush, 
and the plaintive call of the wood-peewee and the far away melody 
of the blue-bird on the wing. ‘Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. It ran on 
without a pause or a break, and without a variation in its sweet and 
delicate strain. The inspiration of the sunshine was infectious. A 
moment later another took up his position on the bough, and then 
a third, and another and another still, until the whole wide loft 
chamber was for the moment a winter paradise of sunshine and 
song.” 
The third section of the lecture, dealing with Early Spring, was 
introduced by some general remarks on the migration of birds, after 
which the commoner birds of early spring were described in turn, 
including the robin, blue bird, song sparrow, chipping sparrow, 
kildeer, horned lark, meadow lark, flicker, phaebe and marsh _ black- 
bird. The following account of the kildeer may serve as an illus- 
tration : ri 
