pressure, they are cheek by jowl with the poultry,--the cow-bunting,
which is the pet prey of the hawk, following them into the back porch
and insisting sometimes on breakfasting with Tray,--or rather with
Legion, for that is the name of the Texas dog. In this familiarity they
are approached, though not equalled, by that more home-staying bird the
meadow-lark, who is here a dweller of the lawn and garden and adds his
mellow whistle to the orchestra of the mocking-bird. This so-called lark
is classed by most naturalists among the starlings, as are two of the
blackbirds, which two he resembles in some of his habits, but not in
migrating, being about as much of a continental as any other biped
American. Nor is he like his cousins in changes of dress. Out of a dozen
of the latter that may be brought down at a shot, you will scarcely find
three exactly alike. They moult at the South, and the young pass
gradually into adult plumage. The male redwing, up to his first autumn,
is hardly distinguishable in dress from his mother. Here he dons his
epaulettes, beginning with the threadbare worsted yellow of the private,
and rising in grade to the rich scarlet and gold of the officer fully
commissioned to flame upon the marsh and carry havoc among its humblest
inhabitants.

A month or two hence, the plover, as shy in his Northern haunts as the
lark, will, in three species, be as much at home upon the lawn. Youth
and inexperience must, as in the case of the other birds, be one
explanation of this unwonted familiarity. Among other reasons is the
abundance of food, under a mild sky, with but rare frosts to bind the
earth and no snows to cover it. The temperature of an average winter day
is 60° or 65°. A norther is apt to blow three or four times in the
season, and it brings the mercury down to freezing-point or some degrees
lower. After the two or three days of its duration, the first warm
morning covers the walks and most other bare parts of the soil with