1885.] 
toes in the snows of Canada. 
white North hath his” heart. Our win- 
ter is his summer. There is nothing in 
his anatomy to explain this idiosynerasy. 
His physical construction closely resem- 
bles that of his insessorial brethren, 
most of whom go when he comes. He 
has no discoverable provision against 
cold. Adaptation to environment does 
not seem to cover his case. It does not 
cover his legs. They remain unfeathered. 
We shudder to see his translucent little 
tarsi on top of the snow, which he ob- 
viously prefers as a stand-point to bare 
spots where the snow has been blown 
away. Compared with the ptarmigan 
and the snowy owl, or even the ruffed 
grouse, all so well blanketed, he suggests 
a survival of the unfittest. 
The movements of this tough little 
anti-Darwinian are overlapped by the 
bluebird and the robin,—our robin, best 
entitled to the name, inasmuch as it is 
accorded him by fifty-odd millions 
against thirty millions who give it to 
the redbreast,—who are usually with 
him long before he gets away. They 
never move very far southward, but 
watch the cantonments of Frost, ready 
to advance the moment his outposts are 
drawn in and signs appear of evacu- 
ation. Their climate, indeed, is deter- 
mined in winter rather by altitude than 
by latitude. The low swamps and 
pineries that skirt tide-water in the 
Middle States furnish them a retreat. 
Thence they scatter themselves over the 
tertiary plain as it widens southward be- 
neath the granite bench that divides all 
the great rivers south of the Hudson 
into an upper and a lower reach. De- 
tachments of them extend their tour to 
the Gulf. Readers of ‘ A Subaltern on 
the Campaign of New Orleans in 1814— 
15” will recall his mention of the assem- 
blage of robins hopping over the Chal- 
mette sward that were the first living 
inhabitants to welcome the weary in- 
vaders on emerging from the palmetto 
marshes. They can hardly be said to 
reach the particular region of which we 
propose to speak, both species, the blue- 
bird especially, being almost strangers 
to it. 
“ The 
BIRDS OF A TEXAN WINTER. 
559 
Other species, the cardinal grosbeak 
among them, may be said to stop, as it 
were, just out of hearing, the echo of 
their song slumbering in the thin, keen 
air, ready to swell again into unmis- 
takable reality. Between these stubborn 
fugitives and those who follow the but- 
terflies to the tropics there is a wide 
variety in the extent of travel in which 
our winged compatriots indulge. 
Quadrupeds, whose movements are 
less speedy and more limited, have to 
adapt themselves to the Northern winter 
as best they may. Hard and long train- 
ing has made them less the creatures of 
climate than their feathered associates, 
who might themselves in many cases 
have learned perforce to stay where they 
were reared but for possessing the light 
and agile wings which woo them to 
wander. We may fancy Bruin, with his | 
passion for sweet mast and luscious 
fruits, eying with envy the martin and 
the wild fowl as they sweep over his 
head to the teeming Southland, and 
wondering, as he huddles shivering into 
his snowy lair, why Nature should be so 
partial in her gifts. The call of the 
trumpeting swan, the bugler crane, and 
the Canada goose falls idly upon his 
ear. To their breezy challenge, “ A 
new home,—who’ll follow?” he cannot 
respond. 
Let us join this tide of travel and 
move sunward with some of those who 
take through-tickets. We can easily 
keep up with them now. Steam is not 
slower than wings,—often faster. Sit- 
ting at ease, yet moved by iron muscles, 
we can time the coursers of the air. A 
few decades ago, when this familiar 
motor was a new thing comparatively, 
we could not do so. At the jog of 
twenty miles an hour, even the sparrow 
could pass us on a short stretch, and 
the dawdling crow soon left us in the 
rear. Qur gain upon their time is so 
recent that the birds have not yet fully 
realized it. Unaccustomed to being 
beaten by anything on earth, they will 
skim along abreast of a train till, to 
their unspeakable, or at least unspoken, 
wonderment, they find that what they 
are fleeing from is fleeing from them. 
