WINTER FROLICS. 45 



last year they made their appearance in these woods, 

 remaining a week or more, and then were not seen 

 until about the middle of August. Again they dis- 

 appeared, returning in October, and then hied away 

 once more and did not come back until January. 

 Besides, at one time they associated with the eastern 

 colony of birds and at another with the western. 

 Like some " featherless bipeds, " — Lowell's expres- 

 sion, — they seemed to be of a roving disposition. 

 A winter ago they occasionally stirred the elves and 

 brownies of the woodland into transports by their 

 sweet, sad minor whistle, but this winter they were 

 provokingly chary of their musical performances. 



For ever-presentness, however, both summer and 

 winter, the crested titmice and white-breasted nut- 

 hatches bear off the palm. Many droll tricks they 

 perform. One day in January a titmouse scurried 

 from the ground into a sapling; he held a large 

 grain of corn between his mandibles, and, after 

 flitting about a few moments, hopped to a dead 

 branch that lay across the twigs, and deftly pushed 

 the grain into the end of the bough. I stepped 

 closer, when he tried to secure the hidden morsel ; 

 but my presence frightened him away, and I climbed 

 the sapling, drew the broken branch toward me, 

 and peered into the splintered end ; yes, there was 

 the grain of corn wedged firmly into a crevice. The 

 provident little fellow ! He had secreted the morsel 

 for a stormy day when it would be impossible to 

 procure food on the ground. If Solomon had 

 watched these thrifty, industrious birds, as they 



