24 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



knew what was up a flock of birds had discovered 

 them and taken half our stock. Cosmos and let- 

 tuce gone to seed are two of the surest lures for the 

 goldfinches. 



I feel almost as if I owed an apology to my little 

 feathered friends for writing of them so statistically 

 save only that it is in their defense. When I think 

 how much less pleasant, nay, how much less home- 

 like, my home would be without the birds, I realize 

 anew my debt to them for things more precious than 

 material advantages. When I think how since my 

 earliest boyhood I have watched the chimney-swal- 

 lows rise and dart against the pale-gold sky of even- 

 ing, the old brick chimney-stack seems no more a 

 part of home than they. When I recall how the birds 

 bathed fearlessly in my garden, naively performing 

 their toilets (about which they are so particular) 

 with all the unconsciousness of some wild field bird 

 in a rain-pool on a pasture rock, it seems to me the 

 birds bring a bit of the far, free spaces into my gar- 

 den close. When I see a chickadee tapping away at 

 a frozen bit of suet, suspended against the gray and 

 white landscape of winter, his little black head is a 

 symbol of the cheerfulness of the snow, and when I 

 hear the harder blows of the woodpecker at the suet 

 ball, I say: 



"Hammer away, old chap! That's what we put 

 it there for. It's poor picking under the tree bark 

 now, and that beautiful, sleek, black-and-white 

 body of yours needs heat to maintain itself in this 

 frozen world. Come again, and often, you bit of 

 vivid life in the chill and naked tracery of winter 

 limbs." 



