in an apple-tree; at which I forthwith clambered
over the picket-fence after them, heedless alike of the deep snow and
the surprise of any steady-going citizen who might chance to witness my
high-handed proceeding. Some of the birds were feeding upon the rotten
apples; picking them off the tree, and taking them to one of the large
main branches or to the ground, and there tearing them to pieces,--for
the sake of the seeds, I suppose. The rest sat still, doing nothing. I
was most impressed with the exceeding mildness and placidity of their
demeanor; as if they had time enough, plenty to eat, and nothing to
fear. Their only notes were in quality much like the goldfinch's, and
hardly louder, but without his characteristic inflection. I left the
whole company seated idly in a maple-tree, where, to all appearance,
they proposed to observe the remainder of the day as a Sabbath.

Last winter the grosbeaks were uncommonly abundant. I found a number of
them within a few rods of the place just mentioned; this time in
evergreen trees, and so near the road that I had no call to commit
trespass. Evergreens are their usual resort,--so, at least, I gather
from books,--but I have seen them picking up provender from a
bare-looking last year's garden. Natives of the inhospitable North, they
have learned by long experience how to adapt themselves to
circumstances. If one resource fails, there is always another to be
tried. Let us hope that they even know how to show fight upon, occasion.

The purple finch--a small copy of the pine grosbeak, as the indigo bird
is of the blue grosbeak--is a summer rather than a winter bird with us;
yet he sometimes passes the cold season in Eastern Massachusetts, and
even in Northern New Hampshire. I have never heard him sing more
gloriously than once when the ground was deep under the snow; a
wonderfully sweet and protracted warble, poured out while the singer
circled about in the air with a kind of half-hovering flight.

As I was walking briskly along a West End street, one cold morning in
March, I heard a bird's note close at hand, and, looking down,
discovered a pair of these finches in a front yard. The male, in bright
plumage, was flitting about his mate, calling anxiously, while she, poor
thing, sat motionless upon the snow, too sick or too badly exhausted to
fly. I stroked her feathers gently while she perched on my finger, and
then resumed my walk; first putting her into a little more sheltered
p