BIRD PARADISE 243 



the hour of their long slumber has arrived. 

 Curious how the viands stored in this refrigerator 

 all keep fresh by keeping alive, and the keeper 

 of it all is cold and frost. But see the conveni- 

 ence of the whole matter. The feasters, crows 

 and other birds, foxes and smaller animals, when 

 hungry have simply to tarry right where they 

 are — dining-table everywhere — and feast upon 

 the greatest variety of food put before any body 

 of feasters. The loaves and fishes of this vast 

 world have not as yet been numbered by any one 

 and the fragments are ever being gathered but 

 never measured. 



One of our smallest winter visitors is the red- 

 poll linnet. Locally it bears the name of the 

 little snowbird and in many respects is among 

 the most interesting of our winter birds. When 

 the time of housekeeping arrives he hies away 

 to the shores of the Arctic Seas, so far away that 

 I think very few have seen its nest or heard its 

 nesting song. The musical effort it makes in its 

 winter haunts is a sort of rambling lisp that one 

 is quite willing should quickly reach its con- 

 cluding note. Like the snow-bunting this bird 

 seems the happiest when the cold and storm of 



