City Birds. 



77 



row. AVe had no idea there were so many 

 kinds, but they must be sparrows, and it is 

 much easier to tell them apart than we 

 should have thought. The snowy front of 

 the whitethroat, the "breastpin" of the 

 song sparrow, the white tail feathers of the 

 grassfinch (vesper sparrow), the red cap of 

 the chippy — all these mark the individuals 

 as plainly as the general coloring marks the 

 family. 



I well remember the process, as delight- 

 ful as it was gradual, by which I made the 

 acquaintance of the chickadees. The first 

 time we met was on the occasion of 

 their arrival in winter quarters, and a 

 whole flock of the wee, downy, tricksy 

 things, were celebratmg it with all their 

 might. The fluffiness, the bright eyes, the 

 quick movements and the general hilar- 

 ity of the new comers, made me christen 

 them " titmice " on the spot. I had no idea 

 what a titmouse might be, but feeling that 

 no name could be more appropriate, I 

 gave it to them, and called them so for six 

 months before finding out that I had fol- 

 lowed a true instinct. The chickadee is 

 really a titmouse. 



No other bird has such an unmistak- 

 able way of displaying himself among the 

 winter weeds. He flutters down upon 

 some dry and bending stalk, and swinging 

 round upon it with all the recklessness of 

 a boy on a new trapeze, shakes down the 

 rustling seed in showers, catching it some- 

 times as it falls. You will see a dozen 

 of them in some empty lot, as happy with 

 their few coarse wild hemp plants as in the 

 fields on a June day — -probably happier. 

 As the cold and the snow increase, and 

 seeds grow scarce, they will " take to the 

 road " like bold highwaymen, snatching 

 what they can fairly under the horses' hoofs 

 and seeming to find bits to their liking in 

 the coldest, freshest snowdrifts. 



The bluejay is a frequent visitor in town, 

 and so is the hairy woodpecker. His name, 

 by the way, is as hideous as that of most 



other members of his family, for the hand- 

 some fellows are libeled as the " red- 

 headed," the "three-toed," the "yellow- 

 bellied," and worse, as their common de- 

 scriptive names. The brilliant tricolor 

 (red-headed) woodpecker is often seen in 

 the parks, and the warbling vireo likes 

 nothing better than to travel from tree 

 top to tree top down a crowded street. 

 Only he is quick and quiet, and if you are 

 to see him, the best way is from an upper 

 window, as he slips out of one hiding place 

 into another. 



The most interesting of our discoveries 

 may be made in town. It was in the heart 

 of the business part of the city that I saw a 

 bird which in spite of the weight of evi- 

 dence against his appearing in that place 

 or at that time, I shall persist in believing 

 that rare visitant, the blue grosbeak. The 

 exquisite cedarbird is quite willing to visit 

 us occasionally, and I have seen a whole 

 flock of them make their headquarters for 

 a week in a poor, bare, straggling tree, 

 standing alone amid forlorn back yards, 

 surrounded by ash barrels and wood sheds. 

 Even the shy brown creeper, whose one ob- 

 ject in life, when he is at home, seems to 

 be to put a tree between himself and all ob- 

 servers, will astonish you some morning by 

 gliding in from the woods and slipping 

 around the trunk of the Cottonwood on the 

 corner as if he had always lived there. 



I have spoken of the comparative ease 

 with which one learns to classify the small- 

 er birds in the two great families of finches 

 (sparrows) and warblers. For the larger 

 and more conspicuous birds, too, one 

 scarcely needs a teacher. We know, the 

 very first time the scarlet tanager flits be- 

 fore us, as he may in the still, shady grounds 

 of the hospital, or high among the trees 

 fringing the water course of the park, that 

 here is the "fire bird.'' The brilliant 

 grackles, the " red-winged " and " yellow- 

 shouldered " reed birds, you know at first 

 sight are nothing but blackbirds, and again. 



