SNOW 177 
grove, the blue jays scream in the hemlock 
glade, the snowbird mates the snow with its 
whiteness, and the robin contrasts with it his 
still ruddy breast. The weird and impenetra- 
ble crows, most talkative of birds and most 
uncommunicative, their very food at this sea- 
son a mystery, are almost as numerous now as 
in summer. They always seem like some race 
of banished goblins, doing penance for some 
primeval and inscrutable transgression, and if 
any bird can have a history it is they. In the 
Spanish version of the tradition of King Ar- 
thur, it is said that he fled from the weeping 
queens and the island valley of Avilion in the 
form of a crow; and hence it is said in “ Don 
Quixote” that no Englishman will ever kill 
one. 
The traces of the insects in the winter are 
prophetic, — from the delicate cocoon of some 
infinitesimal feathery thing which hangs upon 
the dry, starry calyx of the aster, to the large 
brown paper parcel which hides in peasant 
garb the costly beauty of some gorgeous moth ; 
but the hints of birds are retrospective. In 
each tree of this pasture, the very pasture 
where last spring we looked for nests and 
found them not among the deceitful foliage, 
the fragile domiciles now stand revealed. But 
where are the birds that filled them? Could 
