snow and icicle
battalions will not give way a foot. Though by day the sun's fierce attack
may drench the earth with the watery blood of the ice legions, yet at
night, silently and grimly, new reserves of cold repair the damage.

Our winter visitors are still in force. Amid the stinging cold the wee
brown form of a winter wren will dodge round a brush pile--a tiny bundle
of energy which defies all chill winds and which resolves bug chrysalides
and frozen insects into a marvellous activity. Other little birds, as
small as the wren, call to us from the pines and cedars--golden-crowned
kinglets, olive-green of body, while on their heads burns a crest of
orange and gold.

When a good-sized brown bird flies up before you, showing a flash of white
on his rump, you may know him for the flicker, the most unwoodpecker-like
of his family. He is more or less deserting the tree-climbing method for
ground feeding, and if you watch him you will see many habits which his
new mode of life is teaching him.

Even in the most wintry of Marches some warm, thawing days are sure to be
thrown in between storms, and nothing, not even pussy willows and the
skunk cabbage, yield more quickly to the mellowing influence than do the
birds--sympathetic brethren of ours that they are. Hardly has the sunniest
icicle begun to drop tears, when a song sparrow flits to the top of a
bush, clears his throat with sharp chirps and shouts as loud as he can:
"Hip! Hip! Hip! Hurrah--!" Even more boreal visitors feel the new
influence, and tree and fox sparrows warble sweetly. But the bluebird's
note will always be spring's dearest herald. When this soft, mellow sound
floats from the nearest fence post, it seems to thaw something out of our
ears; from this instant winter seems on the defensive; the crisis has come
and gone in an instant, in a single vibration of the air.

Bright colours are still scarce among our birds, but another blue form may
occasionally pass us, for blue jays are more noticeable now than at any
other time of the year. Although not by any means a rare bird, with us
jays are shy and wary. In Florida their southern cousins are as familiar
as robins, without a trace of fear of mankind. What curious notes our blue
jays have--a creaking, wheedling, rasping medley of sounds coming through
the leafless branches. At this time of year they love acorns and nuts, but
in the spring "their fancy turns to thoughts of" eggs and young nestlings,
and they