84 BIEDS AND POETS 



them permanent residents, and some of them visitors 

 from the far north, yet there is but one genuine 

 snow bird, nursling of the snow, and that is the 

 snow bunting, a bird that seems proper to this sea- 

 son, heralding the coming storm, sweeping by on 

 bold and rapid wing, and calling and chirping as 

 cheerily as the songsters of May. In its plumage 

 it reflects the winter landscape, — an expanse of 

 white surmounted or streaked with gray and brown; 

 a field of snow with a line of woods or a tinge of 

 stubble. It fits into the scene, and does not appear 

 to lead a beggarly and disconsolate life, like most of 

 our winter residents. Dviring the ice-harvesting on 

 the river, I see them flitting about among the gangs 

 of men, or floating on the cakes of ice, picking and 

 scratching amid the droppings of the horses. They 

 love the stack and hay-barn in the distant field, 

 where the farmer fodders his cattle upon the snow, 

 and every red-root, ragweed, or pigweed left stand- 

 ing in the fall adds to their winter stores. 



Though this bird, and one or two others, like 

 the chickadee and nuthatch, are more or less com- 

 placent and cheerful during the winter, yet no bird 

 can look our winters in the face and sing, as do so 

 many of the English birds. Several species in Great 

 Britain, their biographers tell us, sing the winter 

 through, except during the severest frosts ; but with 

 us, as far south as Virginia, and, for aught I know, 

 much farther, the birds are tuneless at this season. 

 The owls, even, do not hoot, nor the hawks scream. 



Among the birds that tarry briefly with us in the 



