276 



Hints to Audubon Workei's. 



fresh breath of wind murmured that sum- 

 mer was past and — was it a footstep? No! 

 It was an army of little autumn pedestri- 

 ans! A happy host of white-throated spar- 

 rows, hopping about on the ground under 

 the bushes. Busy and fearless, their foot- 

 steps pattered on the leaves as they hunted 

 the ground over, sometimes coming within 

 two or three feet of me without taking 

 fright. A chipmunk scudded through the 

 bushes after his playfellow without startling 

 them. From every side came their happy 

 chee-ree; a cobweb shimmered in the sun- 

 light. What if fall were coming? It 

 brought these little friends of ours! 



WINTER WREN. 



One October day when the raspberry 

 patch was astir with fluttering kinglets and 

 warblers, and noisy with the quarrying of 

 white-throats, the muttered excuses and 

 wait, wait of tardy crows flying hurriedly 

 over from all directions to the caucus in the 

 southwest; I found the piquant little win- 

 ter wrens bobbing about among the bushes 

 oblivious to everything but their own par- 

 ticular business. 



I gave one of them a start as I came 

 upon him unexpectedly, and so, when I 

 caught sight of a second, kept cautiously 

 quiet. But, if you please, as soon as he got 

 a glimpse of me, the inquisitive brown 

 sprite came hurrying along from one rasp- 

 berry stem to another, his absurd bit of a 

 square tail over his back as usual, never 

 stopping till he got near enough for a 

 good look. There he clung, atilt of a 

 stem, bobbing his plump little body from 

 side to side, half apologetically, but say- 

 ing (jiiip with an air that assured me he 

 was afraid of no giants, however big ! 

 When I had admired his mottled, dusky 

 vest and his rusty brown coat with its fmc 

 dusky barring, and noted the light line over 

 his eye, and the white edging of his wing; 

 and when he had decided to his satisfaction 

 what I was doing there in the woods, he 



went hopping along, under an arching fern, 

 off to the nearest stump. When they are 

 hunting about, their tails standing over their 

 backs, their necks bent forward and their 

 straight bills sticking out ahead, these little 

 wrens have a most determined air ! Here 

 you see one examining the sides and top of 

 an old stump, running about, dipping down 

 into the hollow and then flitting off among 

 the bushes, chattering quip-quap as he goes. 

 There one flies against the side of a tree to 

 peck at a promising bit of bark, and then 

 clambers several feet up the side of the trunk 

 to show what a good gymnast he is, and 

 further along, one pops up with a worm in 

 his mouth; shakes it well before eating, 

 and then wipes his bill with the energy 

 characteristic of the active, healthy temper 

 of the whole wren family. 



I have never heard the summer song 

 which Audubon describes so enthusiastical- 

 ly, but last fall one of the wrens favored me 

 with a creaky little winter song that was 

 really quite sweet with all its shrillness: 



On the twelfth of October the ground 

 was covered with snow, and the roads were 

 so white and still I hardly expected to find 

 anything in the raspberry patch. But walk- 

 ing through, I found one of the little wrens, 

 as active and busy as ever. As I stood 

 watching him he climbed into the cosiest 

 cover of leaves that a bush ever offered a 

 bird for shelter, and I supposed he would 

 settle himself to wait for the sun. But no! 

 he examined it carefully, turning his head 

 on one side and then the other, probably 

 thinking it would be a very nice place for 

 some tender sparrow, and then flew out 

 into the cold snowy bushes again. 



On the twenty-second of the month, when 

 we had had a still heavier fall of snow, and 

 they found it too cold even to take dinner 

 from a golden-rod stem, one of the confid- 

 ing little birds came on the piazza right in 

 front of my window to hunt. You should 

 have seen him work! He ignored the 

 crumbs I threw out for him but flitted 



