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 Sometimes he kept this up for an hour or more. Even after all the peanuts were moved to his tree, he would bluster around at the other feeding places and try to drive those peaceable birds away.

The dearest of all my winter birds were some that came singing in all sorts of weather. I called them my little minstrels.

"Chicaday, chicaday, chicaday-day-day-day," was their song. Somebody has named them chickadees, and the name just fits. If you should see a little gray bird with a black cap and bib, who comes singing that song, you may know that you have seen a chickadee.

The chickadees were not at all particular what they ate. They sang just as cheerily when they had only breadcrumbs as they did when they found suet and peanuts and sunflower seeds. They never wasted their food. If any fell to the ground they picked it up. They were the politest of birds and, like the downy and the hairy, they worked at the trees most of the time.

These winter birds are some of nature's best house-cleaners. They work all through the cold and stormy season when the other birds are away in their sunny winter homes. Should we not remember to give them a treat once in a while, and so brighten the cold days with good cheer?

From the very first, I heard many bird voices coming from the ravine. So one morning I took