There was some scant compensation in the presence of the winter wren one winter in the Sunflower state. The fourteenth of December brought one of these brown Lilliputians to a deep hollow in town, where he chattered petulantly and scampered along an old paling fence. No more winter wrens were seen until January seventh, when one darted out of some bushes on the bank of a stream about two miles south of town. My next jaunt to this hollow took place on the twenty-seventh, when, to my surprise, a hermit thrush was seen in a clump of bushes and saplings--a bird that I supposed had been sunning himself for at least a month in the genial South. While tramping about trying to get another view of the unconventional thrush, I frightened a winter wren from a cluster of weeds and bushes. My! how alarmed he was! Uttering a loud chirp, he darted down to the center of the stream and slipped into a little cave formed by ice and snow frozen over a clump of low bushes. There he hid himself like an Eskimo in his snow hut. My trudging near by frightened the bird out of the farther doorway, and he dashed away pellmell, hurling a saucy gird of protestation at me, and was seen by me no more. I examined the little snow house. It was very cunning indeed, and might well have made a cozy shelter for the little wren in stormy weather. My next meeting with a winter wren occurred on the fifteenth of February, in the same hollow, but about an eighth of a mile nearer the river. A query arises here: Did I see four different winter wrens during the winter, or only one in four different localities? Who can tell? That is not all about the winter wrens. My first winter in Kansas was the severest I experienced in that state; yet it was the only winter of the five I spent in Kansas that brought me the winter wren. If it would do any good, one might ask again the question why. Although the winter wren is a migrant in Ohio, as he is for the most part in northeastern Kansas, yet I never heard his song in the former state, while in the latter I was fortunate enough to listen to his tinkling melody three times the first spring I spent there. After that I never heard him, and indeed saw him only a few times. But the sweet, silvery roulade--could there be anything more charming in the world of outdoor music? My winter rambles--and winter is almost as good a time for bird study as summer--enabled me to note some variety of temperament in the avian realm. One thing we soon learn in our winter outings: Few birds are recluses. No, they are sociable creatures, living in what might be called nomadic communities. In the spring-time, during the mating season, they pair off and become more or less exclusive and secretive, keeping close to the precincts they have selected; but in winter they grow more neighborly, and move about in the woods or over the fields in flocks of various sizes.