THE INVITATION 221 
to seek shelter about the houses and outbuildings. 
As night approached, and the winds and the cold 
increased, they seemed filled with apprehension and 
alarm, and in the outskirts of the city came about 
the windows and doors, crept behind the blinds, 
clung to the gutters and beneath the cornice, flitted 
from porch to porch, and from house to house, 
seeking in vain for some safe retreat from the cold. 
The street pump, which had a small opening just 
over the handle, was an attraction which they could 
not resist, And yet they seemed aware of the in- 
security of the position; for no sooner would they 
stow themselves away into the interior of the pump, 
to the number of six or eight, than they would rush 
out again, as if apprehensive of some approaching 
danger. ‘Time after time the cavity was filled and 
refilled, with blue and brown intermingled, and as 
often emptied. Presently they tarried longer than 
usual, when I made a sudden sally and captured 
three, that found a warmer and safer lodging for 
the night in the cellar. 
In the fall, birds and fowls of all kinds become 
very fat. The squirrels and mice lay by a supply 
of food in their dens and retreats, but the birds, to 
a considerable extent, especially our winter resi- 
dents, carry an equivalent in their own systems, in 
the form of adipose tissue. I killed a red-shoul- 
dered hawk one December, and on removing the 
skin found the body completely encased in a coat- 
ing of fat one quarter of an inch in thickness. 
Not a particle of muscle was visible. This coating 
