th of a mile
off; and in a stealthy and sneaking manner they flit from tree to tree,
nearer and nearer, and pick up the kernels which the squirrels have
dropped. Then, sitting on a pitch-pine bough, they attempt to swallow in
their haste a kernel which is too big for their throats and chokes them;
and after great labor they disgorge it, and spend an hour in the
endeavor to crack it by repeated blows with their bills. They were
manifestly thieves, and I had not much respect for them; but the
squirrels, though at first shy, went to work as if they were taking what
was their own.

Meanwhile also came the chickadees in flocks, which, picking up the
crumbs the squirrels had dropped, flew to the nearest twig, and, placing
them under their claws, hammered away at them with their little bills,
as if it were an insect in the bark, till they were sufficiently reduced
for their slender throats. A little flock of these titmice came daily
to pick a dinner out of my wood pile, or the crumbs at my door, with
faint flitting lisping notes, like the tinkling of icicles in the grass,
or else with sprightly _day day day_, or more rarely, in spring-like
days, a wiry summery _phe-be_ from the wood-side. They were so familiar
that at length one alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying
in, and pecked at the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow alight
upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden,
and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I
should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels also
grew at last to be quite familiar and occasionally stepped upon my shoe,
when that was the nearest way.

When the ground was not yet quite covered, and again near the end of
winter, when the snow was melted on my south hillside and about my
wood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and evening to
feed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts
away on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs
on high, which comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust; for
this brave bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered
up by drifts, and, it is said, "sometimes plunges from on wing into the
soft snow, where it remains concealed for a day or two." I used to start
them in the open land also, where they had come out of the woods at
sunset to "bud" the wild apple trees. They will come regularly every
evening t