ht of these thrushes, all
young birds of the year, and all with the same symptoms of disorder. I
could only surmise that some poisonous substance, some kind of berry,
perhaps some attractive but deadly exotic from the Botanical Gardens, had
tempted the inexperienced birds and caused their deaths.

As we walk through the October woods a covey of ruffed grouse springs up
before us, overhead a flock of robins dashes by, and the birds scatter to
feed among the wild grapes. The short round wings of the grouse whirr
noisily, while the quick wing beats of the robins make little sound. Both
are suited to their uses. The robin may travel league upon league to the
south, while the grouse will not go far except to find new bud or berry
pastures. His wings, as we have noticed before, are fitted rather for
sudden emergencies, to bound up before the teeth of the fox close upon
him, to dodge into close cover when the nose of the hound almost touches
his trembling body. When he scrambled out of his shell last May he at once
began to run about and to try his tiny wings, and little by little he
taught himself to fly. But in the efforts he got many a tumble and broke
or lost many a feather. Nature, however, has foreseen this, and to her
grouse children she gives several changes of wing feathers to practise
with, before the last strong winter quills come in.

How different it is with the robin. Naked and helpless he comes from his
blue shell, and only one set of wing quills falls to his share, so it
behooves him to be careful indeed of these. He remains in the nest until
they are strong enough to bear him up, and his first attempts are
carefully supervised by his anxious parents. And so the glimpse we had in
the October woods of the two pair of wings held more of interest than we
at first thought.

In many parts of the country, about October fifteenth the crows begin to
flock back and forth to and from their winter roosts. In some years it is
the twelfth, or again the seventeenth, but the constancy of the mean date
is remarkable. Many of our winter visitants have already slipped into our
fields and woods and taken the places of some of the earlier southern
migrants; but the daily passing of the birds which delay their journey
until fairly pinched by the lack of food at the first frosts extends well
into November. It is not until the foliage on the trees and bushes becomes
threadbare and the last migrants have flown, that our northern visi