Photograph by John Treadwell Nichols 
Of all cold-weather birds, crows are perhaps the most conspicuous. Whatever may be their shortcomings during the corn planting and bird nesting seasons, one cannot 
but admire the hardiness and unflagging spirit with which these hardy fellows scour the snow-buried countryside in search of food 
leave the upland and head for the ocean beach, first traversing 
the extensive and ice-bound salt marshes that intercept. The 
tide is low, for the water has gone out from beneath the ice in 
the creek-beds, leaving portions of tbe banks exposed where one 
may see the now abandoned dwellings of scores of fiddler crabs. 
Here, imbedded in the ice, a crow has found a mussel and 
worked long and hard to secure the meat of the frozen bivalve, 
but without success. The least morsel of any kind is detected 
by the sharp eye of the crow ahd .down .he comes to investigate, 
so keen is the pang of hunger within him. He will invade your 
orchard or even your barn yard in this season at sight of food, 
but the great feeding grounds of these black vagabonds now are 
on the beaches and mudflats- where the waves have carried up 
•dead and living creatures of the sea. And so it is that we see 
straggling companies of crow's passing to and from the shore as 
we stand on the salt meadows; but if we were to watch here in 
the middle of the afternoon we should see all of them making 
for the inland regions, where they roost among the pine groves 
during the cold nights, ready to sally forth again at day-break. 
We now come to the bulwark 
•of great sand dunes that pro¬ 
tects the meadows to the rear 
from the destructive force • of 
the waves which can be plainly 
heard pounding and roaring 
not far away. There are some 
small birds creeping about 
among the grasses and on 
■close inspection they prove 
to be. Ipswich sparrows, 
typical birds of our sandy - 
Sea-COastS in wintet. rhe\ Curious as it may seem, the first plumage o 
are pale gray on the back, browns 
tinged with brown, the belly being very light and the bird by its 
actions reminds us of a small, nervous animal. It could not for 
a moment be confused with the song sparrow, whose color is a 
rich brown above and whose breast is heavily streaked. As we 
skirt the base of a large dune and come to a place where the 
coarse grass is especially tall, a large and silent bird shoots up 
only a few yards ahead and with superbly graceful wingstrokes 
rises steadily to a height, facing into the wind, and peering down 
at us the whole time. Having remained aloft till he has thor¬ 
oughly analyzed us, he swings off over the marshes and alights on 
a low mound. Through our glasses we can see him adjust his 
wings and turn his head solemnly in many directions; he is of a 
huffy color, streaked on tbe breast, and seeming to wear dark 
spectacles. We have made the acquaintance of the short-eared 
or meadow owl, and found him in his chosen habitat. He is less 
nocturnal than tbe little saw-whet, and on cloudy days may occa¬ 
sionally be seen beating slowly above the grasses, sharing the 
boundless range with the marsh harrier. 
We must not rush over the crest of the ridge of dunes in our 
eagerness to view the ocean, but 
crawl to tbe top carefully on 
hands and knees and peer 
through the fringe of dead 
grasses to spy on any birds that 
may be beyond. Did you ever 
witness such a panorama? It 
is well that we were 
cautious, for now we 
may observe, but our¬ 
selves remain unob¬ 
served. There are hun¬ 
dreds of herring gulls 
( Con'd on page 394) 
f the barred owl is white, changing later to the soft 
of the adult bird 
( 373 ) 
