March, 1923 
of bark came down and T forgot the bit¬ 
ing cold. Without warning, without the 
merest note of expectation, on the frosty 
air came that peculiar, metallic ring, the 
well-defined, clean-cut, little “chic-chica- 
dee, deedee.” Incessantly, from a full 
throat, the bird uttered its pleasant re- 
' frain. A black-capped took it up from 
another tree. They opened up the forest 
as if by magic. What more could one 
ask, for here was life and song amidst 
the sombre beauty of the day. 
The Cedar Waxwing 
I IKE the heathen Chinese, nature plays 
E *— 1 a strange game at times—the cedar 
waxwing is an example of her mysterious 
ways. Imagine a bird so clothed in quiet 
elegance that you listen for an outburst 
of song beyond the wildest pourings of a 
moon-swayed mockingbird ; ponder a bird 
I with the dignity and poise of the very 
aristocracy of life; picture a bird of sleek 
airily-tinted plumage who flits silently on 
velvet wings out of nowhere and who 
flees again as silently into the wind’s go¬ 
ing and is gone. That such a bird, with 
its plumage and its errant wanderings, 
should be songless, almost voiceless, is 
one of nature’s problems. Given the 
genius of song, with its haunting tem¬ 
perament and nomadic flights, imagina¬ 
tion could not say to what flights of mel¬ 
ody this bird would go. 
Cedar waxwings of my acquaintance 
have been winter birds, prowlers of Jan¬ 
uary snows, haunters of dark cedars and 
old apple trees. In the back pastures and 
old fields of run-down farms may be 
found apple trees still holding tenaciously 
to their small, frost-kissed fruit, and 
upon these the waxwings feed. Again I 
have come upon flocks regaling them¬ 
selves with the bitter berries of cedar, a 
fruit which few birds, except the ruffed 
grouse, will ever touch. They show no 
trace of fear or shyness at approach, and 
one time I broke loudly with each step a 
thick crust which would not bear my 
weight, and yet they fed on as uncon¬ 
cerned as though I were not in the neigh¬ 
borhood. A light snow was falling. 
They moved from fruit to fruit with no 
! hurry or nervous flitting, just feeding in 
a silent, methodical manner. Once, I 
caught a faint lisping hiss, the only note. 
Suddenly as one, they lifted wings and 
fled to another tree. 
The Horned Larks 
T HE bird of many names—horned 
lark, shore lark, wheat bird, prairie 
bird, road trotter, life bird, spring bird 
are they known in various parts of the 
country. By the hornlike tuft of black 
feathers on the forehead are they known. 
Lovers of open country, ground feeders 
1 and ground livers, they are found every¬ 
where from the muddy flats of indolent 
streams to the barrens of field and pas¬ 
ture. Among small birds they are known 
as the bird who walks, and their tracks 
printed on the snow and soft mud of 
warm spring lead in all directions in their 
quest for seeds and winter insects which 
consists principally of weevils and co- 
j‘ coons of tineid moths. One wonders the 
hunting instinct which the bird uses in its 
\ search for insects. Uttering a sweet 
whistled “tseet, tseet,” they leave the 
ground hurriedly in a straight away hesi¬ 
tant flight, then swing about and alight 
at the old place. At night they roost in 
small flocks on the ground, the bare earth 
under thick shrubbery where snows can¬ 
not be blown in. In passing through a 
MI[IUlllllllllllllll[|[|||||||li[Ullllllll[|||||||lll[llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll[|l|||lll01lll!!!lll[|||||ii^ .. 
Among the pleasures of winter afield 
are the visitant birds which have 
come down out of the North. Many 
of them came before the first snow¬ 
fall, others arrived with the snow 
and the great majority fluttered in 
at different times, but the first thaws 
of early spring will send them hack 
to their breeding grounds. 
llllllllllllBllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIili 
hilly pasture late one night T heard the 
sudden cries of many birds down by the 
brook, cries of such startling clearness 
and plaintiveness that I hurried to inves¬ 
tigate. Close to the water, on a warm 
American Crossbill 
place covered with rocks and moss, a 
flock of horned larks had roosted for the 
night with nothing but the cold glistening 
stars overhead. The thin gleam of flash¬ 
light found the disturber, or rather the 
trail. A wild cat had crept up on the 
flock. The animal made its kill by leap¬ 
ing into their midst and putting all claws 
and teeth into action. Feathers sprinkled 
the moss and snow, and cat tracks lead 
away toward the swamp down the brook. 
I have never forgotten the frightened 
cries of those little birds. 
Pine Grosbeak and Kinglet 
ISTAKEN identity is easy in bird 
study, more so to the tyro and oc¬ 
casional tramper. In a fast passing- 
glance the pine grosbeak might be taken 
for a purple finch or a crossbill on ac¬ 
count of their rosy red plumage. The 
pine grosbeak is regarded as a stupid 
bird, but my belief is such fearlessness is 
pure friendship. Man is not an enemy in 
their eyes. Finding a flock in a grove of 
small scrub pines, I have thrown sticks 
and pine cones into the flock without 
starting them into flight. Individual birds 
only hopped to higher branches and went 
on calmly feeding. At times they have a 
sweet warble, but the winter note seems 
to be a clear, oft-repeated whistle which 
sweeps through the woods like the whis¬ 
tle of a small boy. In going through pine 
seedlings it is quite possible, when snows 
are deep and grosbeaks have quieted 
down, to reach a hand and touch the 
birds. But movement of the hand must 
be slow, constant, as in handling a squir¬ 
rel or a moose bird. Can you call that 
stupidness? Rather, I think it is down¬ 
right friendliness, love at first ac¬ 
quaintance. 
Often have I wondered how the small 
birds of warbler-size ever pulled through 
some of these New Hampshire winters. 
For instance, the golden-crowned kinglets. 
Little birds, four inches long, of rugged 
endurance, their chirps grow louder in 
severe storms and lowering temperatures 
and never are they more content than 
when running among the brush of hill¬ 
sides and stonewalls in the falling snows. 
Industrious, ever on the move, I find 
them on the tamarack carefully searching 
every crack and crevice, and calling in 
shrill, lisping notes. Again they may be 
found prowling the snows under the wil¬ 
lows which line brooks. You may know 
them by their size—the male birds with 
their crown of orange and yellow bor¬ 
dered with black. 
Nuthatch and Pine Siskin 
A S the white-breasted nuthatch is a 
resident within its breeding range 
we cannot call it a visitor. The red¬ 
breasted bird is a visitor, a sort of dis¬ 
tinguished personage whose visits are 
rare and in between. Nature played an¬ 
other one of her pranks in the making of 
this bird; she started out to make a wood¬ 
pecker and changed her mind; she lopped 
off the tail short and square and gave 
the bill an upward turn, but seeing her 
mistake she dressed it with an array of 
soft colors and so we have a bird of 
quite presentable appearance. The red¬ 
breasted like the social qualities of flocks. 
Coniferous trees are their habitat, and 
if the snow under a tree is sprinkled 
with bits of bark you may rest assured, 
if there are not woodpeckers about, then 
the nuthatches have taken possession. 
Diligent workers, they search every 
crevice and cavity in true woodpecker 
fashion and make great inroads into the 
wood-borer population. Their soft, nasal 
“yank-yank” is unforgettable. Once 
heard is never forgotten. 
The food supply does not worry the 
siskin unless an ice storm sweeps in¬ 
land from the coast. A little bird doing 
no great good and no trace of harm, it 
haunts the conifers where its goldfinch- 
like “tcheer” drops from the very tip of 
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