"I have now given you free-hand sketches of the great majority of our winter residents, and these outlines are necessarily very defective from their brevity as well as for other reasons. I have already talked an unconscionably long time; but what else could you expect from a man with a hobby? As it is, I am not near through, for the queer little white-bellied nut-hatch, and his associates in habits, the downy, the hairy, the golden-winged, and the yellow-bellied woodpeckers, and four species of owls, are also with us at this season. With the bluebirds the great tide of migration has already turned northward, and all through March, April, and May I expect to greet the successive arrivals of old friends every time I go out to visit my patients. I can assure you that I have no stupid, lonely drives, unless the nights are dark and stormy. Little Johnnie, I see, has gone to sleep. I must try to meet some fairies and banshees in the moonlight for her benefit But, Alf, I'm delighted to see you so wide-awake. Shooting birds as game merely is very well, but capturing them in a way to know all about them is a sport that is always in season, and would grow more and more absorbing if you lived a thousand years." A bent for life was probably given to the boy's mind that night. CHAPTER XVII FISHING THROUGH THE ICE Every day through the latter part of February the sun grew higher, and its rays more potent. The snow gave rapidly in warm southern nooks and slopes, and the icicles lengthened from the eaves and overhanging rocks, forming in many instances beautiful crystal fringes. On northern slopes and shaded places the snow scarcely wasted at all, and Amy often wondered how the vast white body that covered the earth could ever disappear in time for spring. But there soon came a raw, chilly, cloudy day, with a high south wind, and the snow sank away, increasing the apparent height of the fences, and revealing objects hitherto hidden, as if some magic were at work. "I have always observed," said Mr. Clifford, "that a day like this, raw and cold as it seems, does more to carry off the snow than a week of spring sunshine, although it may be warm for the season. What is more, the snow is wasted evenly, and not merely on sunny slopes. The wind seems to soak up the melting snow like a great sponge, for the streams are not perceptibly raised." "The air does take it up the form of vapor," said Webb, "and that is why we have such a chilly snow atmosphere. Rapidly melting snow tends to lower the temperature proportionately, just as ice around a form of cream, when made to melt quickly the addition of salt, absorbs all heat in its vicinity so fast that the cream is congealed. But this accumulation of vapor in the air must come down again, perhaps in the form of snow, and so there will be no apparent gain."