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Several woodpeckers, kingfishers, jays, bluebird, kingbird, chickadee, snow bunting; several sparrows, including, fortunately, the white-crowned, white-throat and song, but now, unfortunately, the English as well. There are blackbirds, red-polls, a dozen warblers, the American robin, hermit thrush and ruby-throated humming-bird. Both the land and sea mammals are of great importance.
The red-polls and the goldfinches often travel together, or at least are often to be found feeding in company; and as they resemble each other a good deal in size, general appearance, and ways, the casual observer is very likely not to discriminate between them.
If I have described them so that you would know them, please write me their names." There can be little doubt but the young observer had seen a pair of red-polls, a bird related to the goldfinch, and that occasionally comes down to us in the winter from the far north.
Besides these were little red-polls, dressed warmly in magenta and brown for the winter, hopping and clinging among the seed-weeds exposed by the breezes; and hardy, impudent, harsh-voiced blue-jays, cloaking much villany and cunning under wondrous suits of clothes; and trim, neat cedar wax-wings, perching on elevated twigs, always apparently at leisure; in the woods, whole bands of chickadees and nuthatches, cruising it cheerfully, calling to each other in their varied notes, tiny atoms defying all the cold and famine Old Winter could bring.
Glad as we are of the society of the goldfinches and the red-polls at this time of the year, we cannot easily rid ourselves of a degree of solicitude for their comfort; especially if we chance to come upon them after sunset on some bitterly cold day, and mark with what a nervous haste they snatch here and there a seed, making the utmost of the few remaining minutes of twilight.
Personally, we always contributed these tokens of sympathy in the form of slate pencil, and always felt that it would be a comfort and a treasure to them. Our School was remarkable for white mice. Red-polls, linnets, and even canaries, were kept in desks, drawers, hat-boxes, and other strange refuges for birds; but white mice were the favourite stock.
In great, green flakes the hay is rolled off, and distributed about in small heaps upon the unspotted snow. After the cattle have eaten, the birds snow buntings and red-polls come and pick up the crumbs, the seeds of the grasses and weeds. At night the fox and the owl come for mice.
Like the snow buntings and the red-polls, they roam over the higher latitudes of Europe, Asia, and America, and make only irregular visits to our corner of the world. I cannot boast of any intimate acquaintance with them.
Only three species of warblers appeared during the month: the pine-creeping warblers, already spoken of, who were trilling on the 14th; the yellow-rumped, who came on the 23d; and the yellow red-polls, who followed the next morning. The black-throated greens were mysteriously tardy, and the black-and-white creepers waited for May-day. A single brown thrush was leading the chorus on the 29th.
Many stories are told of the red-polls' fearlessness and ready reconciliation to captivity, as well as of their constancy to each other. I have myself stood still in the midst of a flock, until they were feeding round my feet so closely that it looked easy enough to catch one or two of them with a butterfly net.
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