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The first bird seen in the woods was a white-breasted nuthatch, working on the trunk of a red birch on the river bottom. Next to the chickadee, he is the tamest bird of the woodlands. One may easily get within six feet of him, as was done on this occasion, and admire his beautiful ashy-blue coat, his white vest and white cheeks, with his black cap and nape.

A gold-hilted sword was upon his thigh, the blade of which was gilded, bearing a cross of inlaid gold of the hue of the lightning of heaven. His war-horn was of ivory. Before him were two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, having strong collars of rubies about their necks, reaching from the shoulder to the ear.

But you may depend upon it he is not alone; he is only a part of the rim of a feathered colony dwelling near at hand, and consisting, very likely, of tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, juncos, tree sparrows, blue jays, one or two downy woodpeckers, a pair of cardinals, a flicker or two, and a cackling red-breasted woodpecker.

Vessels in the far horizon have the same delicate tint, as if woven of the same liquid material. A single wave lifts itself languidly above a reef, a white-breasted loon floats near the shore, the sea breaks in long, indolent curves, the distant islands swim in a vague mirage.

And if, as he half supposed, this white-breasted animal was not as other wolves, which fear to tread on ice if it was in very truth the werewolf form which the wild Aasta had power to assume, why had she not recognized him? Why had she run away? Was it that she had now taken to the cover of the woods, that she might presently reappear in her own maidenly figure?

Hairy Woodpecker, 1; Downy Woodpecker, 7; Blue Jay, 8; Goldfinch, 2; Pine Siskin, 1; Tree Sparrow, 75; Slate-coloured Junco, 20; Cardinal, 2; White-breasted Nuthatch, 3; Chickadee, 26. Total, 10 species, 145 individuals. Denver, Colo. Dec. 25; 2.20 to 4 P. M. Partly cloudy; ground with some snow; wind west, strong; temperature 45 degrees to 55 degrees.

Nothing moved but the creeping shadows until a flight of small white-breasted birds went past the window. "The snow is gone," I said. "The snowbirds are flying north." "The woods will soon be green," she murmured wistfully. "Ah, if we could ride through them once more, back to Weyanoke" "To home," I said. "Home," she echoed softly. There was a low knocking at the door behind us.

"Sit," I said, pointing to the yellow-wood bench which was seated with strips of rimpi, and the three of them squeezed themselves into the bench and sat there like white-breasted crows on a bough; the young man staring at me with a silly smile, the lawyer peering this way and that, and turning up his sharp nose at the place and all in it, and the interpreter doing nothing at all, for he was a sensible man, who knew the habits of well-bred people and how to behave in their presence.

He pointed to the pretty white-breasted birds as they darted here and there, and on we still went, jolting up and down in the sandy bottom, where there was only a faint track, till we were opposite to a series of cavern-like holes and the sand cliff towered up with pine-trees here and there half-way down where the sand had given way or been undermined, and they had glided down a quarter half three parts of the distance.

Apparently this was to find new feeding grounds. While we were resting under a spruce I espied a white-breasted, blue-headed, gray-backed little bird at work on a pine tree. He walked head first down the bark, pecking here and there. I saw a moth or a winged insect fly off the tree, and then another. Then I saw several more fly away. The bird was feeding on winged insects that lived in the bark.