42 



AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



OUR WINTER BIRDS. 



IRD life in winter, as at all times, is very- 

 interesting, and the various members 

 which constitute the group left with us 

 after the departure of our summer visitors, 

 receive more notice as a rule, because so 

 many of our feathered friends have disap- 

 peared, and because there are not so many 

 other attractions. 



How cheering it is — when the fields are 

 brown and bare, the trees stripped of their 

 foliage, vegetation dead and withered, the 

 ground hard and frozen, and perhaps snow 

 flakes falling— to see some happy, active 

 member of the bird family searching for 

 food and occasionally pouring out a song 

 that almost melts the rigor and desolation 

 of the winter season. Many of our win- 

 ter birds depend for food upon the seeds 

 of various weeds and plants, and should 

 these be covered over by deep snow, they 

 frequently experience want and sometimes 

 starvation. On such occasions many 

 species which are otherwise shy and retir- 

 ing come around the homes of man search 

 ing for food. Then is our golden oppor- 

 tunity to extend the protection and shelter 

 due them, besides enjoying the privilege of becoming more closely 

 acquainted with them and learning more of their ways. 



During the milder days, and indeed on -some very stormy and bleak 

 ones, we are greeted with the hearty song of the Song Sparrow, who 

 seems to possess the happy faculty of enjoying life under all conditions. 

 Only little brown sparrows,«yet they furnish us with some of the sweet- 

 est bird music, and at a time of year when you might least expect it. 

 They reside with us throughout the year and may be observed almost 

 any time along the road sides or in fields and clearing and along the 

 borders of woodlands. The writer has frequently observed these Spar- 

 rows — one or more — in some sheltered locality scratching among the 

 leaves similar to our domestic fowls, but with a quick backward motion, 

 apparently moving both feet at once. 



