10 ON THE BIRDS' HIGHWAY 



ing from the thicket, a true musical per- 

 formance that at our first meeting we 

 would have hardly credited to his blood- 

 thirsty throat. 



Wandering, erratic, welcome travellers, 

 here to-day, to-morrow many miles to the 

 north or southward, are 

 the crossbills ; one may 

 find them stripping the larches 

 or pines in our woodland, as 

 complacently as if they had 

 been there all their lives, in 

 any month of the year, though 

 their home is in the great con- 

 iferous forests of the north. Curious 

 birds, and if only obliging as they often 

 are, one can watch them shell the cones 

 with their singular bills, so well adapted 

 to their work. 



It is one of those still biting mornings 

 in January when the sun makes no im- 

 pression on the snow-drift. We are 

 standing by a clump of pines on a hillside 

 scanning the snow-bound country, our 

 hands thrust deep into our pockets, when 

 with the quickness of thought we are 

 carried back to September when we sat 

 alert in our marsh blind calling the pass- 



