80 BIRDS AND POETS 



to-morrow is the first day of March. About the 

 same time I notice the potatoes in the cellar show 

 signs of sprouting. They, too, find out so quickly 

 when spring is near. Spring comes by two routes, 

 — in the air and underground, and often gets here 

 by the latter course first. She undermines Winter 

 when outwardly his front is nearly as bold as ever. 

 I have known the trees to bud long before, by out- 

 ward appearances, one would expect them to. The 

 frost was gone from the ground before the snow was 

 gone from the surface. 



But Winter hath his birds also; some of them 

 such tiny bodies that one wonders how they with- 

 stand the giant cold, — but they do. Birds live on 

 highly concentrated food, — the fine seeds of weeds 

 and grasses, and the eggs and larvae of insects. Such 

 food must be very stimulating and heating. A giz- 

 zard full of ants, for instance, what spiced and sea- 

 soned extract is equal to that 1 Think what virtue 

 there must be in an ounce of gnats or mosquitoes, 

 or in the fine mysterious food the chickadee and 

 brown creeper gather in the winter woods ! It is 

 doubtful if these birds ever freeze when fuel enough 

 can be had to keep their little furnaces going. And, 

 as they get their food entirely from the limbs and 

 trunks of trees, like the woodpeckers, their supply 

 is seldom interfered with by the snow. The worst 

 annoyance must be the enameling of ice our winter 

 woods sometimes get. 



Indeed, the food question seems to be the only 

 serious one with the birds. Give them plenty to 



