WIN TEE BIRDS. 233 



from his pure setting, and the Daws look black 

 against the snow. 



Along the meadow brook a stately Heron has 

 left its imprints, the Waterhen's track is marked 

 through the reeds ; and there upon the icy 

 margin are the blurred webs of Wild-Ducks. 

 A bright-red Squirrel runs along the white 

 wall ; its warm fur showing sharply against 

 the fence. Naturalists say that the squirrel 

 hibernates through the winter ; but this is 

 hardly so. A bright day, even though cold 

 and frosty, brings him out to visit some summer 

 store. The prints of the Squirrel are sharply 

 cut, his tail at times just brushing the snow. 

 The Mountain-linnets have come down to the 

 lowlands, and we flush a flock from an ill- 

 farmed field where weeds run rampant. When 

 alarmed the birds wheel aloft, uttering the 

 while soft twitterings, and then betake them- 

 selves to the trees. The seeds of brooklime, 

 flax, and knap-weed the Twite seems partial 

 to, and this wild-weed field is to them a very 

 paradise. 



Just now, walking in the woods, the cry of the 

 Bullfinch is heard as perhaps the most melancholy 

 of all our birds; but its bright-scarlet breast 



