ure to the
fantastic embroidery upon the winter snow. Her course is a clear, strong
line, sometimes quite wayward, but generally very direct, steering for
the densest, most impenetrable places,--leading you over logs and
through brush, alert and expectant, till, suddenly, she bursts up a few
yards from you, and goes humming through the trees,--the complete
triumph of endurance and vigor. Hardy native bird, may your tracks never
be fewer, or your visits to the birch-tree less frequent!

THE PARTRIDGE

List the booming from afar,
Soft as hum of roving bee,
Vague as when on distant bar
Fall the cataracts of the sea.

Yet again, a sound astray,
Was it the humming of the mill?
Was it cannon leagues away?
Or dynamite beyond the hill?

'T is the grouse with kindled soul,
Wistful of his mate and nest,
Sounding forth his vernal roll
On his love-enkindled breast.

List his fervid morning drum,
List his summons soft and deep,
Calling Spice-bush till she come,
Waking Bloodroot from her sleep.

Ah! ruffled drummer, let thy wing
Beat a march the days will heed,
Wake and spur the tardy spring,
Till minstrel voices jocund ring,
And spring is spring in very deed.

THE CROW

The crow may not have the sweet voice which the fox in his flattery
attributed to him, but he has a good, strong, native speech
nevertheless. How much character there is in it! How much thrift and
independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit
quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by
his scornful, defiant _whir-r-r-r-r_. Hardy, happy outlaws, the crows,
how I love them! Alert, social, republican, always able to look out for
himself, not afraid of the cold and the snow, fishing when flesh is
scarce, and stealing when other resources fail, the crow is a character
I would not willingly miss from the landscape. I love to see his track
in the snow or the mud, and his graceful pedestrianism about the brown
fields.

He is no interloper, but has the air and manner of being thoroughly at
home, and in rightful possession of the land. He is no sentimentalist
like some of the plaining, disconsolate song-birds, but apparently is
always in good health and good spirits. No matter who is sick, or
dejected, or unsatisfied, or what the weather is, or what the price of
corn, the crow is well and fin