LARKS!
SIR,—I am surprised that any of your Correspondents should doubt that birds eat snow. There is a bull-finch in my aviary, and I tried him. He ate it ravenously. Strange to say, he has not uttered a sound since! My wife says, "Probably his pipe is frozen." This is such a good joke, I think you ought to have it.
Yours, LOVER OF NATURE.
SIR,—You may like to have the following story in support of the idea that animals are aware that snow is frozen water. It was related to me by a rather rackety nephew, who has lived part of his life in South America, and whose word can be strictly relied on. He relates that once, when he was travelling among the Andes, at an elevation of some twenty thousand feet, his mules became very thirsty, and no water was obtainable. Each animal seized a calabash with its teeth, filled it with snow, and trotted off to the crater of an adjacent volcano; it then waited till the lava melted the snow, which it drank up, and finally trotted back again. My nephew says he should not have believed a mule could be so clever, if he had not seen it.
Yours obediently, SAMUEL SOBERSIDES.
SIR,—Since writing you that letter about our bull-finch, I have discovered an even more surprising fact, which I am sure no Naturalist has yet dreamed of. Not only do birds appreciate snow, but they are very fond of iced beverages. A tom-tit, who often drinks water from a saucer which we put on our window-sill, one day found the water frozen. What did the intelligent creature do? Why, it rapped on the window-pane with its beak till the window was opened, then hopped on to the sideboard, and began trying to peck the cork out of a whiskey bottle! I took the hint, and poured some of the spirit into the saucer; the bird drank it greedily! My wife's comment on this occurrence is really too good to be lost, so I send it you. She said, "Evidently the bird was not a tomtitotaller!"
Yours, in convulsions, LOVER OF NATURE (as before).