AM Eli WAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



I could hear twittering and chirp- 

 ings from some small birds that 

 kept provokingly out of sight 

 among the top branches, but peer 

 and look as I would, I could not tell what 

 they were. They did not sing and there 

 was nothing specially characteristic in the 

 little chirps and whispers that came to 

 my ear from time to time. At last one 

 of them flew across the open between two 

 trees and I recognized my small friend 

 chickadee, when he was comfortably es- 

 tablished in his new situation he took 

 time to sing his name very distinctly, in 

 case I had failed to reconize him by sight, 

 but he had no need, for his fluffy gray suit and black cap and cravat 

 mark him at once. There were perhaps a dozen of them getting their 

 supper from the tiny seeds of the hemlock, and, in the road, the snow 

 which had been spotless an hour before was covered with the little 

 brown cones and feathery bits of green where they had nipped off a 

 twig just for fun. Such a chattering and fluttering and chirping as 

 they kept up, just like any other five o'clock function! Between 

 courses one of them would fly from the branch where he had been eat- 

 ing and, hanging upside down on the very tip of a twig would sing his 

 sweet, homely little song over and over by way of adding to the 

 festivity of the occasion showing his own appreciation of the good 

 cheer. And yet, I fancy that as winters go this has been a trying 

 one to the birds that do not migrate and it must be a very frugal re- 

 past, this meal of hemlock seeds. Commend me to any creature who 

 will sing so cheerily over so scanty supper, and even leave off eating 

 to entertain the company. How glad they will be to have Spring and 

 an abundance once more. When they are in little companies and all 

 talking together they do not sing Chick-a-dee-dee-dee; but a little song 

 something like a repetition of the first three notes. It sounds very 

 cheery and companionable when I am walking in winter and is so often 

 the only bird I hear. I am ashamed to think that after their bravery 

 in facing and singing through a northern winter, I shall turn from them 

 to follow the first gay warbler that goes whisking by from the South. 

 My bouquet contains branches of beechand wild cherry tree, red-osier 

 dogwood, a branch of raspberry bush and another of elderberry with 

 buds already swelling. These to be put in a jar of water and watched as 

 they develop, I hope, their leaves and blossoms. And besides my 

 bunch of promises I have a few long feathery sprays of white pine, 

 good, green, always-with-us pine, just because I love a pine tree above 

 •every other and like always to have a bit of its faithful greenness on 

 my desk or near at hand. m. s.. DeCoster, n. y. 



