OUT of the woods they come, visiting our homes wherever they see a standing invitation in the shape of a tree. But each one has his preferences. One likes the evergreens best, another the bare trunk where it is easy to break the bark, and still another likes a fresh tree like the magnolia, glossy and full of life even in winter. You have guessed these are birds? Yes; and the small downy woodpecker comes first, and in all weathers. The other day after a sun-rise of gold and a splendid rainbow arch, swiftly blotted out by a black storm with scudding rain and flying leaves, I caught sight of a tiny downy, in the very heart of all the uproar of the elements, busily pecking his way up a tree near my window. On another winter day, sunny and calm, he came flying overhead with a loud rattling note that spoke of good cheer in most neighborly fashion. It is a family, at the very least, that visits us. There are variations in size, if I mistake not, and one day a pair arrived together; the female with her glossy black velvet crown almost as handsome with her broad white satin stripe down the middle, and black and white markings, as her mate, who, indeed, only outshines her by the lovely band of red on the head or nape of his neck, as you choose to call it. I fancy she is the more anxious housekeeper. At least, it was her persistent call-note, rather sharp in tone, that drew me from my lounge to watch her quick movements on the bark, and it is she that more quickly takes flight. He seems never disturbed by his inquisitive human neighbors, nor even the impudent sparrows—though he can send these to the right about if he pleases—and his tap, tap, tap, like a small drummer on the tree-trunk, is always pleasant to hear. I am glad to know they both have a cozy little home, a hole on the southern side of a tree, where the sun shines on good days, and fancy them tucked into round balls of feathers, only to be distinguished by the red on top, and comfortably asleep, when neither pleasure nor necessity invites them abroad.

The yellow-bellied sapsucker is also a winter guest, but he is far more timid than the downy, and I have often seen him routed by the sparrows or scared off by a sudden sound. The male is very gay in plumage, with much mottled yellowish brown on back, conspicuous white stripes on wings, beautiful clear yellow and black in front, scarlet on his head and cardinal at his throat. The female has a white throat and cardinal or black cap. I have noticed one with a cardinal cap that had little black feathers sticking here and there like an emery bag. They are very full of fun, even riotous in play, and shout, in their summer home—the woods of the north—but they are very quiet when wintering with us, and often flit away without a sound.

Of the nuthatches, the pretty white-breasted one with his soft bluish-grey coat and shining black head, is our familiar resident and the red-breasted an occasional winter companion. They are charming little birds, not specially musical, though their call is vigorous and friendly, but very pretty and gentle, and awakening perpetual wonder and admiration at their feats as acrobats, running as lightly head downwards as in a natural position, and showing equal swiftness and grace in every movement, whether with aid of wings or without. They never seem in the least afraid of us, but raise their softly rounded heads and look at us with a most delightful confidence.

The brown creeper is like a bit of the trunk in his brown tints, mottled as if in mimicry of the play of light and shadow on the bark. He is as truly a tree-creature as ever Greek fable devised, and can so flatten himself, when alarmed, against a tree that no inch of his light breast is visible, and it is difficult, indeed, to recognize him as a separate being. He is the one species found in America of quite a large Old World family, and has some odd characteristics. First, his long tail, used to aid him in climbing, is rather curved and stiff and generally worn by constant use. His bill is also curved, so that the profile of his figure is like a relaxed bow as he works his plodding way up the side of the tree, diligently seeking insects, eggs, and larvÆ, in the minute crevices of the bark. He sticks his little nest, made, of course, of bits of dead wood, bark, and twigs, between the tree and a strip of loose bark, very like a part of the tree itself, and the eggs are spotted and dotted with wood colors, brown in different shades, and lavender. Altogether his life is a tree-study; the tree is to him home, model, hunting-ground, hiding-place, and refuge. He never descends by creeping, but when he wants to search a lower part of the trunk, he flies to the base, and begins it all over again. In the summer fir-wood, farther northward, it is said he sings, but in winter-time we hear only a faint squeak, a little like one bough scraping against another.

The black-and-white creeping warbler is very like our sober brown creeper in habit, but he, like most of his gay brethren, is only a summer guest. In his place we have Carolina chickadees and golden-crowned kinglets—and even, by good luck, an occasional ruby-crowned. All these tiny creatures have the most charming and airy ways of flitting from bough to bough, swinging lightly from the utmost end of a bough, daintily dropping to unexpected resting-places, and rarely pausing for a second's breathing-time anywhere. The Carolina chickadee is said to have a longer note and more varied repertoire than his northern cousin, yet whenever I have heard him in winter weather, there is the same silvery and joyous tinkle of showering Chick-a-dee-dee-dees from the pretty gray and black-capped flock that I have heard in Massachusetts. Perhaps the variations are more evident in his summer singing.

I have left the kinglet for the last, but it is hard to do justice to this lovely little bird that, if the food-supply be all right, will often elect to stay with us in winter rather than migrate to Mexico. His colors are exquisite, olive-green bordered by darker tints that throw the green above and the yellow-tinted white below into fine relief; a brilliant crown of reddish-gold, bordered by black and yellow, and every feather preened to satiny smoothness. He gleans his food merrily, singing or calling softly to himself as he works. His nest is built in the far northern forests, sometimes swinging as high as sixty feet, and woven of pale green mosses, lined with strips of the silky inside back and down for the many nestlings.