522 : The Eastern Snow-Bird. [July, 
Although farther on I may have, for the sake of truth, to mention 
an instance, far from commendable, of Junco’s ill conduct in the 
company of his “betters.” As a cage bird he is cheerful, and 
generally bears a good reputation; he is reported to us, however, 
as impatient of restraint when the warm season comes; and I 
think that I have seen his best qualities in his winter freedom. 
He is winsome, and has a trace of humor—an unconscious seren- 
ity.of the Mark Tapley order—for let the clime be almost 
Arctic, so but the rations hold out, he is gay and wide-awake ; 
his plumage, too, is that of a well conditioned bird—so trim and 
smooth and bright. But here comes one of those proletarian 
summer bickerers—he of the bad reputation—“ who killed Cock 
Robin.” Poor sparrow! I do feel for him, with his fluffy out- 
spread like a little impish owl, which “for all his feathers is 
acold,” He moves squattingly, so as to hug his frozen toes. 
The snow-birds let him to their store and welcome; having fed 
well, they feel too good to be malevolent, and are enjoying a sort 
of pop-game, hopping in and out of their snow dug-out. But 
whom have we here? The Carolina wax-wing, close cousin to 
that big Bohemian; he is the only one of his tribe that has been 
along this winter; despite a trace of the stuck-up, there is some- 
thing almost ducal in his coronal uprightness; nor is he at all 
crestfallen at the unwonted inclemency ; in fact he is rather ma- 
jestical in a toploftical way, and deigns, through a two minutes’ 
patronage, to look at the snow-birds’ frolic, and then leaves. A 
very practical fellow now appears in the apple tree near my window, 
the hairy woodpecker, and he begins business at once, pegging 
in for dear life after that larval Saperda. How he makes the chips 
fly, and breaks the cold stillness with his rat-ta tat-tat. All these 
are living episodes. But that poor moribund sparrow, he is $0 
forlorn; and well he may be, for my boy reports that several of 
his fellows have just succumbed to the pitiless cold, and are lying 
stark-stiff in the barnyard. The truth told, the winter is exceP- 
tionally severe; reports from over thirty observers in our county 
declare that two-thirds of the quails have perished, albeit the © 
efforts to feed them; and our village taxidermist has set up # 
number of “ new birds,” brought him by farmers who found them 
dead, and who say that many small birds have died of starvation. 
Well, what about Junco? O, he’s become jocose ; at least 
seems to twitter: “ This is none of my funeral.” But then our 
Junco can be jolly under trying circumstances, and we must not 
