day before. Sduatting a little, as a to keep his black toes 
warm in his feathers, he twisted the seeds about from one 
- gide of his mouth to the other as he dug out their contents 
- with his tongue. His white chest, throbbing continually 
| with his rapid Saal beats, and his wing eae rivalled the © 
snow. : 
| > The brilliant black head was ows high and its color 
and position showed it. was the male bird that was dining, 
even if the duller colored female had not been crouching on | 
the nearest branch, humbly awaiting the time when her - 
lord should indicate that he had finished and that she might 
eat. The usual red color of his eyes seemed to be a warm © a 
brown as he gazed unblinkingly through the window. One 
could count the fourteen white spots of the insignia on his 
right shoulder and behind that were five more dots that 
formed almost a straight line. A sudden sound caused his 
departure, he and his mate vanishing in the darkness of the 
firs, but she was back again in a moment, more courageous 
this time, or hungrier, than her spouse. 
While she ate, with feet straddled far apart, a ite of 
a bird dropped down beside her, and the Towhee left excited- 
ly. The mite proved to be a Chestnut-backed Chickadee, 
that, almost as soon as it arrived, disappeared unfed. Find- 
ing he had escaped alive he tried fate again, and this time — 
succeeded in snatching a piece of bread almost as large as 
himself, and retired with it to a visible branch, where he 
placed the food under his atom of a foot, and tore off bits, 
which he devoured. Then down he plunged to a piece of fat 
pork fastened to a nearby tree to add the Hlling: of an 
internal sandwich. 
He tried to hang to a cut-off branch just above his 
dainty with his hind toes, while he braced with the front 
ones in order to reach his prize. He seemed as much at home 
upside down as upside up. His ruddy back and sides were 
ruffled out to keep warm air about him, so that it gave him 
an awkward, portly figure, with entirely too much flesh- 
120 
