Our Winter Birds. 
385 
1882 .] 
until April, that it is with difficulty we 
recognize him, so complete is the trans¬ 
formation. The brilliant yellow and 
black have disappeared, and only faint 
tracings of greenish-yellow about the 
head and throat remain. But he is ap¬ 
parently as happy in his sombre suit, 
picking up millet, as when more brill¬ 
iantly attired, and rollicking amid the 
rounded globes of the dandelion, scatter¬ 
ing the airy seeds, and capturing them 
as they start on their winged course. 
Our little gymnast, the titmouse, or 
black-capped chickadee, must not be 
forgotten. Pie is not regarded as mi¬ 
gratory, and yet he comes to us each 
winter, and seems to go northward in 
the spring. He is the most fearless 
bird of my acquaintance, frequently eat¬ 
ing from my hand, and is almost omniv¬ 
orous, taking anything that comes in his 
way, from" a bone that we hang on a 
tree for his tiny lordship to pick, down 
to a plate of preserved berries which 
w'e have placed on the doorstep for the 
bluebirds. But he is quite exclusive in 
his society, and does not mingle freely 
with the other winter birds. The cold 
Northern snow-storms seem only to in¬ 
crease his jollity; now here, now there, 
clinging to a bough, head downward, 
chanting his chick-a-dee-dee. Emerson 
pictures him to the life in the following 
lines: — 
“ When piped a tiny voice hard by, 
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, 
Chic-chicadeedee I saucy note 
Out of sound heart and merry throat. 
As if it said. Good-day, good sir! 
Fine afternoon, old passenger! 
Happy to meet you in these places. 
Where January brings few faces. 
This poet, though lie live apart. 
Moved by his hospitable heart. 
Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort. 
To do the honors of his court. 
As fits a feathered lord of land; 
Flew near, with soft wing grazed mv hand, 
VOL. xLix. — NO. 293. 25 
Hopped on the bough, then, darting low, 
Prints his small impress in the snow, 
Sliows feats of his gymnastic play. 
Head downward, clinging to the spray.” 
When the smaller birds have been 
driven from the fields and woodlands 
to our dwellings by the snow, the birds 
of prey are forced to follow them; so 
there is scarcely a day but we see va¬ 
rious species of hawk or the day owl 
(Surnia Nudsonica) watching their op¬ 
portunity for a meal. We vainly try 
to frighten them away ; but hunger 
knows no law, and they are often suc¬ 
cessful in snatching a bird within a few 
feet of us. 
This owl, S. Hudsonica, is less timid 
and much more persistent than the 
hawk in following his prey. Often, 
when I think I have frightened him 
from the neighborhood, he will noise¬ 
lessly slip out of an evergreen, and with 
the coolest audacity take a sparrow in 
my near vicinity. 
Sometimes one drops down from the 
roof of the house, among the feeding 
birds beneath my window, and, taking 
one of these beautiful creatures in his 
claws, proceeds to the nearest post, and 
crushes its life out. It is a mercy to 
my little favorite to let the owl alone 
after he has secured his prey, for he 
kills it much more quickly than when 
disturbed. 
At sight of this apparent cruelty in 
nature comes the impulse to shoot these 
raptorial birds. But when we think of 
that other biped, whom it is not law¬ 
ful to shoot, who often hunts and kills 
the beautiful denizens of our fields and 
woodlands, from mere wantonness and 
sport of the chase, the hawk, or owl, 
which takes a bird only to appease his 
hunger, towers above him in moral rec¬ 
titude. So our gun leans idly against 
the wall. 
3fary Treat. 
