MARCH. 67 



buried them beneath it. That the bluebirds should have 

 escaped is strange indeed. The broad trunk of a sturdy 

 oak saved me from the tempest's fury, but I dared stay no 

 longer, and while struggling through the ever-shifting 

 drifts I once more caught sight of these same birds, as they 

 were dashed toward the meadows, and above the roar of 

 the wind I heard, as I believe, the bluebird's song. 



I have spoken of foxy sparrows as chiefest of this 

 month's musicians; a word now concerning another of 

 our finches. It has not been long since an ornithologist 

 wrote, " The identity of the grass-finch is doubtful," adding 

 that it had not been determined to be a winter resident in 

 New Jersey. No ? "Well, I identified it as such twenty 

 years ago, and there is not a farmer in .the county that 

 does not know it — the " rut-runner," as he calls it — as a 

 winter bird. My critic adds, too, ornithologists would 

 be grateful if I killed a score of innocents for their 

 benefit. Well, I won't ! And, again, another versed in 

 bird lore suggests that my winter birds were Ipswich spar- 

 rows, which probably never set foot within a hundred 

 miles of my fields. Keally, is it safe to call a crow a 

 crow? There need be no mistaking this species for any 

 other, for all who know our birds at all are familiar with 

 this ever-abundant tenant of our fields. I have called it 

 elsewhere the most " resident " of all our smaller birds ; 

 even going so far as to suggest that it spent its whole life 

 in the field in which it was hatched. This may be an ex- 

 aggeration, but is not very far from the exact truth. In 

 the winter of 1887-'88, I saw them in December and Jan- 

 uary, and two days after the great storm of March 12-14, 

 1888, found one that had succumbed to the cold and 

 snow. There was no necessity to refer to the text-books, 

 but I did so out of idle curiosity, and, as I knew would be 

 the case, it proved to be a " true," and not a sham, grass- 

 finch, the same that Burroughs has made famous, the bird 



