That individual unaffected by the first fluttering wings of returning spring migrants is an anomaly indeed. He must ever have been secluded beyond reach of trill or glint of the feathery kingdom, or else is pitifully invulnerable to one of nature’s chiefest charms. For who, having listened to the enraptured love-notes and witnessed the extravagant devotion, intermingled with drollest buffoonery, during the progress of some field or forest courtship, is beyond feeling interest and pleasure in these half-human and wholly unique performances? Or who has not felt a thrill of admiration, to be followed by one of commiseration, when one of the hunters of the air made his terrific plunge, hurtling down like an animated catapult, to strike his quarry ere it found cover in wood or thicket? To all those having formed some degree of bird companionship and who live where winter robs them of those friends of the fields and woods—to such returning spring would be incomplete without their coming. The earliest break in winter’s shackles tensions their ears to listen for the first returning migrant’s note. Of these the last to leave and first to brave the still vigorous, retreating winter gales is Sir Crow. Painted by popular disfavor even blacker than he merits, his departing caw, mingled with the wild goose’s “haunks,” as they winged southward, barely escaping the first cold wave. His caw has mellowed with his sunny vacation. In place of the discordant medley echoing from the final grove convention will come his spring notes, cawing a domestic cadence half musical, suggesting a chuckle of delight. By twos and threes these black-coated scouts struggle back to former frequentings. In early February, perhaps, when the ambitious sugar-maker is trying for his first “run,” he there catches his first glimpse of blue-black sheen as the northward flyer toilsomely sweeps through the naked trees. At this inhospitable season all of his proverbial cunning stands him in good stead, and truly he is a veritable solon of bird wisdom. Nature seemingly compensated for his gloomy dress and awkward flight by bestowing almost incredible sagacity behind his unattractive exterior. We need not yet listen for other sweeter-voiced arrivals, but while waiting may give ear to some stay-at-home all-winter residents, the chickadee and his crested relative, the tufted titmouse, cheery chirpers and whistlers both, unconquered by the fiercest boreal blasts; the quiet-voiced and colored junco, the industrious creeper and nuthatch, not forgetting that hide-and-go-seek climber the downy woodpecker and his warmer colored, hairy relative. The woodpeckers, with their cheerful taps, trills and chatter, have done much to dispel the gloom of drear and frosty winter days.