VIII. 



LEAVES IN WINTER QUARTERS. 



When the seed-eating birds, that linger with us 

 through the year, fly from their warm coverts on 

 Winter mornings to find their granaries on the 

 ground locked up by the frosts or snow, they have 

 been taught by keen senses to look up higher for 

 their breakfasts, on the tables of the shrubs and 

 trees. If there is in the neighborhood of their 

 bedrooms a plenty of sumach, cornel, privet or 

 barberry bushes spreading out dishes of crimson 

 and purple fruit, the birds are sure to visit them ; 

 but if the scarcity of these puts them on short 

 allowance, the hardy grouse and quail, and the 

 self-reliant little finches, know of other condi- 

 ments on which to regale themselves. 



Centuries and centuries ago — how many it 

 would be interesting to know, but long before the 

 botanists in the cold season began their investi- 

 gations — they discovered by the stress of circum- 

 stances, that the unexpanded buds which stud the 



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