128 BEHAVIOR OF THE PLUMBEOUS BUSH-TIT 



inconvenience, an extreme of cold which sometimes proved fatal 

 to birds of much more seeming hardihood, like Ravens for in- 

 stance ; and were as active and sprightly in the depth of winter 

 as at any other time. I used to wonder how they managed, in 

 such tiny animal furnaces, to generate heat enough to stand 

 such a climate, and speculated whether their incessant activity 

 might not have something to do with it. They always seemed 

 to me model store-houses of energy — conserved to a degree in 

 cold weather, with consumption of no more than was needed to 

 keep them a-going, and thus accumulated for the heavier draft 

 required when, in the spring, the arduous duties of nest-build- 

 ing and rearing a numerous family devolve upon them. Their 

 food at this season consists of various seeds that persist through 

 the winter; during the rest of the year, different insects con- 

 tribute to their subsistence, and foraging for the minute bugs, 

 larvae and eggs that lurk in the crevices of bark seems to be 

 their principal business. They are very industrious in this 

 pursuit, and too much absorbed in the exciting chances of the 

 «hase to pay attention to what may be going on around them. 

 They are extremely sociable — the gregarious instinct common 

 to the Titmice reaches its highest development in their case, 

 and flocks of forty or fifty — some say even of a hundred — may 

 be seen after the breeding season has passed, made up of 

 numerous families, which, soon after leaving the nest, meet 

 kindred spirits, and enter into intimate friendly relations. 

 Often, in rambling through the shrubbery, I have been sud- 

 denly surrounded by a troop of the busy birds, perhaps un- 

 noticed till the curious chirping they keep up attracted my 

 attention ; they seemed to pervade the bushes. If I stood still, 

 they came close around me, as fearless as if I were a stump, 

 ignoring me altogether. At such times, it was pleasant to see 

 the earnestness with which they conducted affairs, and the 

 energy they displayed in their own curious fashion, as if it 

 were the easiest thing in the world to work hard, and quite 

 proper to attend to serious matters with a thousand antics. 

 They are droll folk, quite innocent of dignity, superior to the 

 trammels of decorum, secure in the consciousness that their 

 wit will carry off any extravagance. I used to call them my 

 merry little philosophers — for they took the weather as it came, 

 and evidently knew how much better it is to laugh at the 

 world than cry with it. When fretted with the friction of 

 garrison-life, I have often sought their society, and amused 

 myself like another Gulliver among the Liliputians. 



