To those who look upon Nature with the feelings of a poet or a painter,
we need not speak of the value of the winter-birds as enliveners of the
landscape. Any circumstance connected with scenery, that exercises our
feelings of benevolence, adds to the picturesque charms of a prospect;
and no man can see a little bird, or any other animal, at this time,
without feeling a lively interest in its welfare. The sight of a flock
of Snow-Buntings descending, like a shower of meteors, upon a field
of grass, and eagerly devouring the seeds contained in its drooping
pannicles that extend above the snow-drifts,--of a company of Crows
rejoicing with noisy sociability over some newly-discovered feast in the
pine-wood,--of the party-colored Woodpeckers winding round the trees
and hammering upon their trunks,--all these, and many other sights
and sounds, are associated with our ideas of the happiness of these
creatures; and while our benevolent feelings are thus agreeably
exercised, the objects that cause our emotions add a positive charm to
the dreary aspects of winter.
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