i8o Bird -Lore all the latter half of it, a pair of Red-bellied Nuthatches. They dined with us daily (pretty creatures they are) and stayed so late in the spring that I began to hope the handy food supply would induce them to tarry for the summer. They were mates, I think. At any rate, they pre- ferred to eat from the same bit of fat, one on each side, in great con- trast with all the rest of our company. Frequently, too, a Brown Creeper would be seen hitching up the trunk or over the larger limbs. He likes pleasant society, though he has little to say, and perhaps found scraps of suet in the crevices of the bark, where the Chickadees, who are given to this kind of providence, may have packed it in store. Somewhat less frequently a Gold-crest would come with the others, fluttering amid the branches like a sprite. One bird draws another, especially in hard times. And so it happened that our tree, or rather trees, — an elm and a maple, — were something like an aviary the whole winter through. It was worth more than all the trouble which the experiment cost us to lie in bed before sunrise, with the mercury below zero, and hear a Chickadee just outside singing as sweetly as any Thrush could sing in June. If he had been trying to thank us, he could not have done it more gracefully. The worse the weather, the better we enjoyed the birds' society; and the better, in general, they seemed to appreciate our efforts on their behalf. It was noticeable, however, that Chickadees were with us com- paratively little during high, cold winds. On the i8th of February, for example, we had a blizzard, with driving snow, the most inclement day of the winter. At seven o'clock when I looked out, four Downy Wood- peckers were in the elm, all trying their best to eat, though the branches shook till it was hard work to hold on. They stayed much of the fore- noon. At ten o'clock, when the storm showed signs of abating, though it was still wild enough, a Chickadee made his appearance and whistled Phd'be again and again — "a long time," my note says — in his cheeriest manner. Who can help loving a bird so courageous, "so frolic, stout, and self-possest? " Emerson did well to call him a "scrap of valor. " Yet I find from a later note that "there were nothing like the usual number of Chickadees so long as the fury lasted." Doubtless most of them stayed among the evergreens. It is an old saying of the Chicka- dee's, frequently quoted, " Be bold, be bold, but not too bold." On the same day I saw a member of the household snowballing an English Sparrow away from one branch, while a Downy Woodpecker continued to feed upon the next one. The Woodpecker had got the right idea of things. Honest folk need not fear the constable.
