the snow-covered berries. The brave
woodpeckers were clinging to the snowless sides of the larger boles and
overarching branches of the camp trees, making short nights from side to
side of the grove, pecking now and then at the acorns they had stored in
the bark, and chattering aimlessly as if unable to keep still, yet
evidently putting in the time in a very dull way, like storm-bound
travelers at a country tavern. The hardy nut-hatches were threading the
open furrows of the trunks in their usual industrious manner, and
uttering their quaint notes, evidently less distressed than their
neighbors. The Steller jays were of course making more noisy stir than
all the other birds combined; ever coming and going with loud bluster,
screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his throat, and
taking good care to improve the favorable opportunity afforded by the
storm to steal from the acorn stores of the woodpeckers. I also noticed
one solitary gray eagle braving the storm on the top of a tall
pine-stump just outside the main grove. He was standing bolt upright
with his back to the wind, a tuft of snow piled on his square shoulders,
a monument of passive endurance. Thus every snow-bound bird seemed more
or less uncomfortable if not in positive distress.

The storm was reflected in every gesture, and not one cheerful note, not
to say song, came from a single bill; their cowering, joyless endurance
offering a striking contrast to the spontaneous, irrepressible gladness
of the Ouzel, who could no more help exhaling sweet song than a rose
sweet fragrance. He _must_ sing though the heavens fall. I remember
noticing the distress of a pair of robins during the violent earthquake
of the year 1872, when the pines of the Valley, with strange movements,
flapped and waved their branches, and beetling rock-brows came
thundering down to the meadows in tremendous avalanches. It did not
occur to me in the midst of the excitement of other observations to look
for the ouzels, but I doubt not they were singing straight on through it
all, regarding the terrible rock-thunder as fearlessly as they do the
booming of the waterfalls.

What may be regarded as the separate songs of the Ouzel are exceedingly
difficult of description, because they are so variable and at the same
time so confluent. Though I have been acquainted with my favorite ten
years, and during most of this time have heard him sing nearly every
day, I still detect notes and st