We always keep a bird-record of every walk, and note down the names of the sky-folk whom we meet and any interesting bit of news that they may have for us. In the migration season there is great rivalry as to who shall meet the greatest number from the crowd of travelers going north. Last year my best day's record was eighty-four different kinds of birds, which beat the Botanist by two. A black duck and a late bay-breasted warbler were the cause of his undoing. To a birdist every walk is full of possibilities. Any day, anywhere, some bird may flash into sight for the first time. The Botanist has pointed out to me not fewer than twenty times the sacred field where, one bitter winter day, he saw his first (and last) flock of horned larks. For my part, I never fail to show him the pignut hickory where my first golden-winged warbler spoke to me one May morning. To-day, however, our walk was almost a birdless one. We heard the caw of the crow, the only bird-note that can be certainly counted on for every day of the year. We saw the flutter of the white skirts of the juncos. From a blighted chestnut tree we saw a bird flash down into the dry grass from his perch on a dead limb. As we came nearer, he glided off like a little aeroplane, and we recognized the flight and the spotted buff waistcoat of the sparrow-hawk hunting meadow-mice. Later in the morning we heard the "Pip, pip," of the song sparrow, and marked the black spot on his breast. Far ahead, across a snow-covered meadow, a bird flew dippingly up and down. He had laid aside his canary-yellow and black suit, but his flight bewrayed the goldfinch. Passing through a beechwood, we heard a sharp call, and saw a black-and-white bird back down a tree. This cautious procedure stamped him as the downy woodpecker. Of all the tree-climbers only the woodpeckers back down. Strangely enough, a short distance farther on we heard another cry like that of the downy woodpecker, only harsher and wilder, and caught a glimpse of the hairy woodpecker, the big brother of the downy, a rarer, larger bird of the deep woods. That ended our bird list--a paltry seven when we should have had a score. We passed the swamp meadow close to the road, where the blue, blind gentian grows not twenty-five yards from the unseeing eyes of the travelers, who pass there every October day and never suspect what a miracle of color lies hidden in the tangle of marsh-grass beside their path. The Botanist with many misgivings had shown me the secret. For three years we had tramped together before he held me to be worthy to share it.