WINTER SUNSHINE. 



I? 



served he has no vocal powers whatever. Nature dare 

 not trust him to speak. In his case she preserves a 

 discreet silence. 



The crow may not have the sweet voice which the 

 fox in his flattery attributed to him, but he has a good, 

 strong, native speech nevertheless. How much char- 

 acter there is in it ! How much thrift and indepen- 

 dence ! Of course his plumage is firm, his color de- 

 cided, his wit quick. He understands you at once and 

 tells you so ; so does the hawk by his scornful, defiant 

 whir-r-r-r-r. Hardy, happy out-laws, the crows, how 

 I love them. Alert, social, republican, always able to 

 look out for themselves, not afraid of the cold and the 

 snow, fishing when flesh is scarce and stealing when 

 other resources fail, the crow is a character I would 

 not willingly miss from the landscape. I love to see 

 his track in the snow or the mud and his graceful pe- 

 destrianism about the brown fields. 



The crow in his purity I believe is seen and heard 

 only in the North. Before you reach the Potomac there 

 is an infusion of a weaker element, the fish-crow, whose 

 helpless feminine call contrasts strongly with the hearty 

 masculine caw of the original Simon. 



In passing from crows to colored men I hope I am 

 not guilty of any disrespect toward the latter. In my 

 walks about Washington, both winter and summer, col- 

 ored men are about the only pedestrians I meet ; and 

 I meet them everywhere, in the fields and in the woods 

 and in the public road, swinging along with that pecu- 



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