WINTER VISITORS.
In the midst of the unusual warmth I have come upon one of the more melancholy signs of a hard winter : a redwing lay dead upon the lawn. This comely thrush, who comes with the fieldfares in winter, appears to be much the most sensitive of a tribe that is else peculiarly lusty, In a hard spell the flocks may be almost decimated, though not a single fieldfare falls. It seems to Inc to be a possible explanation that their winter migrations are large and mom sudden than is normal. They do not drift down and steadily increase in numbers, like the fieldfares ; but appear, and indeed disappear, in large numbers and of a sudden ; and a bird wearied with a long migratory flight nurses a very " thinspun life." A few hours' difficulty in finding food may be quite fatal. The bird is as fair as frail. How lovely, are the wing feathers ! I know no other hue, unless it is the red on some feathers of a cock linnet's breast, the least like the suffused pink beneath the redwing's wing. Its song is said to be among the sweetest of all the thrushes ; but the rule that birds only sing about the northern limits of their migration dooms it to unbroken silence in England. We know only the chirps and chuckles of conversation, not the lyric: melody.
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