A BIRD MEDLEY 81 



eat, and no doubt the majority of them would face 

 our winters. I believe all the woodpeckers are win- 

 ter birds, except the high-hole or yellow-hammer, 

 and he obtains the greater part of his subsistence 

 from the ground, and is not a woodpecker at all in 

 his habits of feeding. Were it not that it has 

 recourse to budding, the ruffed grouse would be 

 obliged to migrate. The quail — a bird, no doubt, 

 equally hardy, but whose food is at the mercy of 

 the snow — is frequently cut off by our severe win- 

 ters when it ventures to brave them, which is not 

 often. Where plenty of the berries of the red cedar 

 can be had, the cedar-bird will pass the winter in 

 New York. The old ornithologists say the bluebird 

 migrates to Bermuda ; but in the winter of 1874-75, 

 severe as it was, a pair of them wintered with me 

 eighty miles north of New York city. They seem 

 to have been decided in their choice by the attrac- 

 tions of my rustic porch and the fruit of a sugar- 

 berry tree (celtis — a kind of tree-lotus) that stood 

 in front of it. They lodged in the porch and took 

 their meals in the tree. Indeed, they became regu- 

 lar lotus-eaters. Punctually at dusk they were in 

 their places on a large laurel root in the top of 

 the porch, whence, however, they were frequently 

 routed by an indignant broom that was jealous of 

 the neatness of the porch floor. But the pair would 

 not take any hints of this kind, and did not give up 

 their quarters in the porch or their lotus berries till 

 spring. 



Many times during the winter the sugar-berry 



