BIRD PARADISE 189 



winter supply of food is somewhat circumscribed, 

 but like many other species of birds they can get 

 on for several days very well with a limited 

 amount of food. From the parson's standpoint 

 it would be a nice thing for them to migrate and 

 spend the winter in the South. We could spare 

 them here at the North and the outing I think 

 would do them good. I should miss their games, 

 if they are games, and there is a certain kind of 

 cheerfulness about them even when they engage 

 in their battles that is nice to contemplate. If 

 the fellows are ever conscious of the many changes 

 of weather in our inclement season they rarely 

 ever show it. Heat and cold seem to affect them 

 about alike and both are greeted cheerily so far 

 as I can see. Eeally there is some good in the 

 English sparrow. 



With the advent of the snow-bunting we may 

 count our winter as fully launched. I have heard 

 the calls of these birds several times, but as yet 

 have not seen any of them. True to their usual 

 practice they first people the air several hundred 

 feet above the fields below. I have a notion that 

 the fellows spend three or four days on the wing 

 when they first arrive in our section. I hear 

 them passing sometimes in the night, giving out 



