AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 163 



close to the house. She kept a sharp eye on the cat, which tried sev- 

 eral times to catch her. After the marrow in the bone had been most- 

 ly eaten, making the hollow quite deep, she "was very quick about 

 plunging her head into it and drawing out. She was not going to be 

 caught in a hole, not she! From the window of the kitchen or dining 

 room she would permit me to watch her at her feast, but when I went 

 out on the porch, she would scuttle up the tree, chirping her protest 

 at the interruption. It struck me as odd that she never found the ker- 

 nels and suet on the roof of the front porch. Neither did a pair of 

 Chickadees which paid an occasional visit to the meat bone in the rear 

 yard. 



A few Hairy Woodpeckers have found winter feeding grounds in 

 town, and are busy chiseling grubs and larvae out of the bark of the 

 trees. Who can tell of how much service they are to the human inhab- 

 itants? A number of brilliant Cardinals and their mates may be found 

 here and there, chirping in the trees, displaying their gay colors, and 

 rifling the weed patches of their seeds. Now and then their bill of fare 

 is varied by the addition of corn grains, which they split and then grind 

 to pieces with their stout beaks. A friend hung up an ear of corn in 

 his yard, and tells me that for a while it was visited every day by two 

 brilliant males and one female of this species; later he reported that 

 four pairs had found the feast, and were daily guests, the first comers 

 having evidently told their neighbors of the free larder. 



The palm for singing this last winter went to the Carolina Wren, 

 whose military salute was rung out on the frosty air many a morning 

 even when the mercury registered twenty degrees below zero. Best 

 of all, his winter song was as loud and cheerful and full-toned as his 

 vernal performance, though not heard so often. He was singing his 

 blithe chanson on February 16th, a clear morning with mercury eight 

 degrees below zero. Also on February 25th, when, though not so 

 cold, a stinging wind was blowing from the east. Nothing seems to 

 daunt our little soldier in feathers. His has been the only bird song 

 heard all winter long, even the lyrical Song Sparrows having been re- 

 duced to silence during the long-continued cold weather. 



However, Carolina has his ecentricities like many other birds. The 

 first of March brought a few days of balmy, springlike weather, when 

 the snow and ice departed with a rush, and the Song Sparrows and 

 Robins were beguiled into singing. Surely, I thought, this will be a 

 gala-time for the Wrens; but, contrary to all expectations, not a Caro- 

 lina's song was heard in all the town or the country round about; only 

 a loud, impatient chir-r-r, as if they were angry that pleasant weather 

 had come at last. 



