SOME WINTER BIRDS. 
131 
ground under the pines near Merrill’s Yard and the brick 
schoolhou.se on the Derry Road. Such aggravating things 
as they were ! Sometimes as silent as death, sometimes 
singing a faint, sweet little winter song, they always man¬ 
aged to stay just out of sight by keeping a twig or a spray 
of leaves between them and their curious visitors. It was 
fully half an hour before the writer could successfully ob¬ 
serve any distinctive markings, but when the rufous head 
and the very clearly defined whitish wing bars were seen, 
there was no longer any doubt, and down he went on to 
the December list. He has been seen twice by the writer 
since then, in the same locality, when he deigned to show 
the bullet hole” spot in his breast. 
As for the robins, December and early January had been 
so warm and seductive that some lilacs had been betrayed 
into putting forth leaves, and so it may be supposed the 
robins were deceived also as to the real season of the year. 
Since the coming of the snow, the birds have failed to show 
themselves to the writer. To the suet lumps, hung in the 
apple trees in the yard, the woodpeckers and the nut¬ 
hatches come in much smaller numbers than last year. So 
far there has been no Canadian nuthatch (Sitta Canaden¬ 
sis) and no male downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubes- 
cens). The female downy comes once in awhile, some¬ 
times making that call note which sounds so like a stone¬ 
cutter’s chisel at work, sometimes clinging unconcernedly 
to the suet in company with one or more English sparrows, 
when she does the eating, and they sit still and look suspi¬ 
cious and imposed upon. Shrikes are said to be unusual¬ 
ly plentiful this season. Can it be that their presence has 
frightened away the smaller birds, or is it not a good 
larvae year? Be the reason what it may, there are cer¬ 
tainly not nearly so many nuthatches, chickadees and 
woodpeckers in the writer’s haunts as there were last year. 
The most careful search has failed to reveal a golden- 
