The lower orders, such as the humming-bird with his insect-like
stomach and sucking-tube, and so on up through the warblers and
flycatchers, more strictly bound by the necessities of their life,
closely follow the sun,--while the upper-ten-thousand, the robins,
cedar-birds, sparrows, etc., like man, omnivorous in their diet and
their attendant _chevaliers d'industrie_, the rapacious birds,
allow themselves greater latitude, and go and come occasionally at all
seasons, though in general tending to the south in winter and north in
summer. But precedence before all is due to permanent residents, with
whom our intercourse is not of this transitory and fair-weather
sort. Such are the crow, the blue jay, the chickadee, the partridge,
and the quail, who may be called regular inhabitants, though perhaps
all of them wander occasionally from one district to another. Besides
these, perhaps some of the hawks and owls remain here throughout the
year. But the species I have named are the only ones that occur to me
as equally numerous at all seasons in the immediate vicinity of
Boston, and never out of town, whether you take the census in May or
in January.
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