How pretty their call to each other at such times,--_paisley_ or
_peasely_, with the rising inflection!

The only one of our winter birds that really seems a part of
the winter, that seems to be born of the whirling snow, and to
be happiest when storms drive thickest and coldest, is the
snow bunting, the real snowbird, with plumage copied from the
fields where the drifts hide all but the tops of the tallest
weeds,--large spaces of pure white touched here and there with
black and gray and brown. Its twittering call and chirrup coming
out of the white obscurity is the sweetest and happiest of all
winter bird sounds. It is like the laughter of children. The
fox-hunter hears it on the snowy hills, the farmer hears it when
he goes to fodder his cattle from the distant stack, the country
schoolboy hears it as he breaks his way through the drifts toward
the school. It is ever a voice of good cheer and contentment.

One March, during a deep snow, a large flock of buntings stayed
about my vineyards for several days, feeding upon the seeds of
redroot and other weeds that stood above the snow. What boyhood
associations their soft and cheery calls brought up! How plump
and well-fed and hardy they looked, and how alert and suspicious
they were! They evidently had had experiences with hawks and
shrikes. Every minute or two they would all spring into the air
as one bird, circle about for a moment, then alight upon the snow
again. Occasionally one would perch upon a wire or grapevine, as
if to keep watch and ward.

Presently, while I stood in front of my study looking at them, a
larger and darker bird came swiftly by me, flying low and
straight toward the buntings. He shot beneath the trellises, and
evidently hoped to surprise the birds. It was a shrike, thirsting
for blood or brains. But the buntings were on the alert, and were
up in the air before the feathered assassin reached them. As the
flock wheeled about, he joined them and flew along with them for
some distance, but made no attempt to strike that I could see.

Presently he left them and perched upon the top of a near maple.
The birds did not seem to fear him now, but swept past the
treetop where he sat as if to challenge him to a race, and then
went their way. I have seen it stated that these birds, when
suddenly surprised by a hawk, will dive beneath the snow to
escape him. They doubtless roost upon the ground, as do most
ground-builders, and hence must often be covered