er,--none that I recollect, except birds of
prey. And not only do birds of the same kind associate, but certain
species are almost always found together. Thus, the chickadee, the
golden-crested wren, the white-breasted nuthatch, and, less
constantly, the brown creeper and the downy woodpecker, form a little
winter clique, of which you do not often see one of the members
without one or more of the others. No sound in nature more cheery and
refreshing than the alternating calls of a little troop of this kind
echoing through the glades of the woods on a still, sunny day in
winter: the vivacious chatter of the chickadee, the slender, contented
pipe of the gold-crest, and the emphatic, business-like _hank_ of the
nuthatch, as they drift leisurely along from tree to tree. The winter
seems to be the season of holiday enjoyment to the chickadee, and he
is never so evidently and conspicuously contented as in very cold
weather. In summer he withdraws to the thickets, and becomes less
noisy and active. His plumage becomes dull, and his brisk note changes
to a fine, delicate _pee-peh-wy_, or oftenest a mere whisper. They are
so much less noticeable at this season that one might suppose they had
followed their gold-crest companions to the North, as some of them
doubtless do, but their nests are not uncommon with us. Fearless as
the chickadee is in winter,--so fearless, that, if you stand still, he
will alight upon your head or shoulder,--in summer he becomes cautious
about his nest, and will desert it, if much watched. They build here,
generally, in a partly decayed white-birch or apple-tree, excavating a
hole eighteen inches or two feet deep,--the chips being carefully
carried off a short distance, so as not to betray the workman,--and
lining the bottom of it with a felting of soft materials, generally
rabbits' fur, of which I have taken from one hole as much as could be
conveniently grasped with the hand.

Besides the species that we regularly count upon in winter, there are
more or less irregular visitors at this season, some of them summer
birds also,--as the purple finch, cedar-bird, gold-finch, robin, the
flicker, or pigeon woodpecker, and the yellow-bellied and hairy
woodpeckers. Others, again, linger on from the autumn, and sometimes
through the winter,--as the snow-bird, song-sparrow, tree-sparrow.
Still others are seen only in winter,--as the brown and shore larks,
the crossbills, redpolls, snow-buntings, pine grosbeak, an