OUR BIRDS IN WINTER. 
CHAPTER 1. 
I T was toward the close of a warm afternoon 
in February, that a small party of birds 
were observed fluttering among the trees and 
branches of an old orchard that stood on the 
southern slope of a hill in Eastern Massachu- 
setts. The weather for the past few days had 
been warm and genial, and the snow had 
melted from little hillocks and rocks in many 
places, exposing to the gaze their surfaces 
covered with short grass, weeds, or gray 
lichens and moss. This orchard that the 
birds were visiting had been much neglected 
by its thriftless owner, and the limbs and 
branches were covered with moss and loose 
bark that furnished comfortable hiding-places 
for noxious insects, and most convenient rest- 
ing-places possible for their larvae, and for the 
deposit of their eggs. 
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