To think that with one glance of the eye more Canadian sparrows could be seen than I found in all my Canadian tramps two months ago! And they had all the freshness, too, of this brisk October morning. There was no listlessness, however long their journey may have been. _Snap—crackle_, these crisp words best describe their songs and movements; and when life snaps and crackles, whether it is our own or that of other creatures, it is life worth living. So marked is the difference between bird life now as compared with what we see of it in May that the same species are scarcely to be recognized as such. This is peculiarly true when the spring and autumn plumage are different, as in the case of bobolinks, that now are flitting southward as yellow-brown reed-birds. With our recent arrivals, as well as all-the-year-round birds, it is now a season of fun and feasting. Life has few cares for them for months to come, and they appreciate the fact. It was the old story. I was seeing too much. Had I not kept in the background, the day would have teemed with adventure, but I should have been less of a hermit. It was hard to single out some one small bird among a hundred. I turned from white-throats to kinglets, from woodpeckers in the trees to chewinks on the ground, but everywhere there was no end of bustle, if not confusion. Silent woods, indeed! No city could have shown a busier thoroughfare than the interlocking branches of the trees. The Stock Exchange was never noisier than when a crowd of grakles came rushing from the outer world and settled in a little cluster of white pines. Here seemed the opportunity of a lifetime, yet I was puzzled to know what to do. To merely catalogue the species as they came in view would have been absurd; to say that a flock of this or that species was feeding in the tree tops is equally uncalled for. Would there never come some startling incident? It came that moment. A swift-winged hawk dashed through the trees. I fancied I felt the fanning of his wings upon my face. But, better than all, I saw something of the swifter tactics of threatened birds. Their darting earthward was simply, marvelous; their clinging to the under side of branches was wonderful; but, above all, the instantaneous recognition of danger and promptness to find a safe shelter struck me. After all, the sense of danger was ever present with these happy-go-lucky birds. Unless there was such a sense controlling them their movements could not have been so efficacious and so wholly free from confusion. Here is no loose interpretation that profound critics love to dwell upon. One has but to see a host of birds, and if of several species so much the better, to recognize how busily their brains keep working that the dangers really ever in attendance shall not rob them of all comfort.