are accordingly hated by the small birds. Nevertheless no bird is
quicker to shout and scream "Thief! Robber!" at some harmless little owl
than are these blue and white rascals.

You may seek in vain to discover the first sign of nesting among the
birds. Scarcely has winter set in in earnest, you will think, when the
tiger-eyed one of the woods--the great horned owl--will have drifted up to
some old hawk's nest, and laid her white spheres fairly in the snow. When
you discover her "horns" above the nest lining of dried leaves, you may
find that her fuzzy young owls are already hatched. But these owls are an
exception, and no other bird in our latitude cares to risk the dangers of
late February or early March.

March is sometimes a woodpecker month, and almost any day one is very
likely to see, besides the flicker, the hairy or downy woodpecker. The
latter two are almost counterparts of each other, although the downy is
the more common. They hammer cheerfully upon the sounding boards which
Nature has provided for them, striking slow or fast, soft or loud, as
their humour dictates.

Near New York, a day in March--I have found it varying from March 8 to
March 12--is "crow day." Now the winter roosts apparently break up, and
all day flocks of crows, sometimes thousands upon thousands of them, pass
to the northward. If the day is quiet and spring-like, they fly very high,
black motes silhouetted against the blue,--but if the day is a "March
day," with whistling, howling winds, then the black fellows fly close to
earth, rising just enough to clear bushes and trees, and taking leeward
advantage of every protection. For days after, many crows pass, but never
so many as on the first day, when crow law, or crow instinct, passes the
word, we know not how, which is obeyed by all.

For miles around not a drop of water may be found; it seems as if every
pool and lake were solid to the bottom, and yet, when we see a large bird,
with goose-like body, long neck and long, pointed beak, flying like a
bullet of steel through the sky, we may be sure that there is open water
to the northward, for a loon never makes a mistake. When the first pioneer
of these hardy birds passes, he knows that somewhere beyond us fish can be
caught. If we wonder where he has spent the long winter months, we should
take a steamer to Florida. Out on the ocean, sometimes a hundred miles or
more from land, many of these birds make their winter home. When the bow