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Birds, Vol. III, No 3, March 1898

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<h2><SPAN name="WHERE_MISSOURI_BIRDS_SPEND_CHRISTMAS" id="WHERE_MISSOURI_BIRDS_SPEND_CHRISTMAS"> </SPAN>WHERE MISSOURI BIRDS SPEND CHRISTMAS.</h2> <div> <ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_o.jpg" width-obs="78" height-obs="100" alt="" /></div> <p class="drop-cap">OF course we know where the English Sparrow spends his Christmas. And the Snowbird came down in October and is with us yet. Likewise the Bluejay is here in many of our yards, and is quite respectable—like Eugene Field's boy, now that there are no eggs to eat nor young birds to destroy. The Redhead Woodpecker is probably in the deeper woods, though I have not yet seen him this winter. Sometimes he goes south and digs grubs off the tall, dead, southern trees.</p> <p>But we may be interested in where some of our departed friends are Christmasing.</p> <p>All our other Woodpeckers stay with us—except the Yellowhammer. He has taken to feeding upon the ground a good deal of late and does not like it frozen.</p> <p>The Redbreasted Woodpecker and our two little Sapsuckers as we call them, are always here in the winter—the most optimistic birds we have.</p> <p>I heard the Nuthatch only a few days ago. I did not see him but I knew by the way he talked through his nose that he was hanging head down on some nearby tree. The only other little bird that climbs up tree trunks—except the Woodpeckers—is the Browncreeper, a rather rare bird with us. Some years ago one of the public school teachers sent me one that a little boy had found so chilled that it was helpless; so I suspect that he ought to spend Christmas further south—for his health.</p> <p>In the woods, the Tree-Sparrow, associating with the Snowbird, occasionally sings us a Christmas Carol—the only bird here now from which we may expect a song, unless some vernal day should loose the syrinx of the Cardinal, or provoke the "<i>fee-bee</i>" of the Crested Titmouse.</p> <p>Christmas is on the vernal side of the winter solstice and any sunny day thereabout is more like spring than autumn.</p> <p>Sometimes in warm swampy places, the Fox-Sparrow spends the winter about us, but I have never seen any here, though they are on the river about Louisiana, Mo., now, I suspect, along with the Winter-Wren. They both sing occasionally in winter.</p> <p>On our high backbone position here at Mexico, between the rivers, we are not favorably situated for bird study because the little feathered folks prefer the deep tangles of the river bottoms, and they appreciate the fact that it is naturally warmer there also. Even Robins and Bluebirds sometimes stop in these over winter here in Missouri.</p> <p>The Doves and Blackbirds are mostly in the southern states, but not far; for, eating grain only now, they are after climate rather than food. But such birds as our swallows and the Fly-catchers—say the Peewees, Bee-Martins, and their kind—are much farther on where the insects fly all the year round. Some of them are in Florida and some are in South America and a few perhaps are banqueting in Old Mexico, studying the silver question.—J. N. <span class="sc">Baskett</span>, in <i>Mexico (Mo.) Intelligencer</i>.</p> <hr class="small" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</SPAN></span></p> <table class="sp2 mc w50" title="BLACK DUCK." summary="BLACK DUCK."> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter"> <SPAN name="i_012.jpg" id="i_012.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%" src="images/i_012.jpg" width="600" height="449" alt="" /></SPAN></span> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.</td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40">BLACK DUCK.<br/> Life-size.</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">Copyright by<br/> Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</SPAN></span></p> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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