--or, at least, one that we
associate with winter and call the Snowbird; for everybody sees him on
his autumn and winter travels, and knows his Sparrow-like call-note,
while his summer home is so far north or so high on mountains that few
visit him in the tangled woodlands where he sings a pretty trilling song
to his mate.

[Illustration: Slate-Colored Junco.]

"When I was a boy here at the Farm, these white-vested Juncos were my
winter pets. A flock was always sure to come in October and stay until
the last of April, or even into May if the season was cold. One winter,
when the snow came at Thanksgiving and did not leave the ground until
March, the birds had a hard time of it, I can tell you. The Robins and
Bluebirds soon grew discouraged, and left one by one. The Chickadees
retreated to the shelter of some hemlock woods, and I thought the Winter
Wrens were frozen into the woodpile, for I did not see any for weeks.
The only cannibal birds that seemed to be about were a pair of Cat Owls
that spent most of the time in our hay-barn, where they paid for their
lodgings by catching rats and mice.

"But my flock of Juncos were determined to brave all weathers. First
they ate the seeds of all the weeds and tall grasses that reached above
the snow, then they cleaned the honeysuckles of their watery black
berries. When these were nearly gone, I began to feed them every day
with crumbs, and they soon grew very tame. At Christmas an ice storm
came, and after that the cold was bitter indeed. For two days I did not
see my birds; but on the third day in the afternoon, when I was feeding
the hens in the barnyard, a party of feeble, half-starved Juncos, hardly
able to fly, settled down around me and began to pick at the chicken
food.

"I knew at a glance that after a few hours' more exposure all the poor
little birds would be dead. So I shut up the hens and opened the door of
the straw-barn very wide, scattered a quantity of meal and cracked corn
in a line on the floor, and crept behind the door to watch. First one
bird hopped in and tasted the food; he found it very good and evidently
called his brothers, for in a minute they all went in and I closed the
door upon them. And I slept better that night because I knew that my
birds were comfortable.

"'They may go in once, but you will never catch them so again,' said my
father, when he heard about it. I had an idea, however, that the birds
trusted me; for though they flew out very