The moment we set foot out of doors the distant "caw-caw" of the crows sounded like an invitation in our ears. How I love that sound! It is to the ear what a dash of color is to the eye. We took the road to the right, where we saw some woods a quarter of a mile or more away. Before we had gone far we heard a medley of bird notes coming from the fields on our left. We couldn't make out what they were, as they were some distance away, but I caught a note now and then that sounded like a fragment of the meadow-lark's song--just a faint reminiscence of it. After passing two pastures and a cornfield on our left, we came to a piece of thin timber land. The road, which began to descend here, had been cut down somewhat, leaving banks more or less steep on either side. We went along slowly, stopping frequently to examine the beautiful mosses and lichens which abounded. We had seen no birds, with the exception of a woodpecker, at close range yet. Presently we came to a turn in the road which led us up a slight rise of ground, bordered on both sides by woods. Arrived at the top of this hillock we loitered about looking at the many interesting thing that are always to be seen in the woods. All at once we were startled by a shrill scream, or cry, which sounded like some young animal being strangled, and behold! an immense hawk flew off over the tree-tops. It didn't fly very far though, and gave us more of its music at intervals. The road from this point led down to a small brook spanned by a wooden bridge. Looking down toward this bridge, a gorgeous sight met our eyes. A flock of cardinals, half a dozen or more, were flying and sporting about among the low bushes near one end of it. What a delicious touch of color for a winter landscape! There were chickadees, too, hopping about among them in a most neighborly fashion. We watched them closely, quietly drawing nearer and nearer. Pretty soon they flew into the trees close by, and from thence deeper into the woods. We saw and heard many woodpeckers, both the downy and the hairy being very plentiful. As the place where we had seen the redbirds was such a pretty one, we were in no haste to leave it, even after they had departed. So we perched ourselves on top of an old rail fence, and waited for some birds to come to us and be looked at. We hadn't been there very long before some tufted titmice came into the trees near us, and delighted us with their cheery notes and cunning ways. The "caw" of the crows was quite loud here and, with the added notes of the woodpeckers and chickadees, made it quite lively. Every once in a while a few drops of rain would fall. But this only added to the wildness of our surroundings, and seemed to put us farther away from the rest of the world.