To those who can walk eight furlongs and see only a milestone, winter may be a dreary season: but Nature at rest, for those who love her, is a sleeping beauty. Again, if it so happens death is everywhere about you, it should not prove repulsive. Death is the law of life, and not a flower in June can boast greater beauty than the empty seed-pods of many a decaying plant. Shudder, if you will, at the word “skeleton,” but handle that of many a creature or plant, and enthusiastic admiration is sure to follow. In June, we glory in the deadly struggle for existence that everywhere is raging; charmed by the flaunting banners, the music, the “pomp and circumstance of glorious war”; why not then be rational and cull beauty as well as profit from the battle-field when the struggle is over? If a shrub is beautiful clad in motley garb, should not its filmy ghost in silvery gray merit a passing glance? So ran my thoughts as I crossed my neighbor’s field, seeking new traces of frost’s handiwork, but here I failed. The general aspect was wintry, but definite results of wintry weather could not be found. Even on cold clay soil dandelions bloomed, and tissue-ice in the wagon ruts had no discouragement for the grass that bordered it. To sum up the result, rambling in January during such winter as this is not attractive, unless one is carried away by the novelty of plants blooming out of season, or hearing sounds when he expected silence. And a word here of winter sounds. Except immediately before a snow-storm, the country is never silent. Here and there, the fields may be deserted, but birds are somewhere, and these, of both sexes, can not keep quiet long. Of our winter birds, it can be said that they are essentially noisy, and chirp more, if they sing less, than birds in summer; and in the anomalous condition of the outdoor world, at present it was a relief to reach a hedge with its complement of birds. Their listless chirping now recalled days with the mercury near zero, when, defying the keen wind from the north, they sang a hearty welcome to the season and hailed every snow-squall as a gift from the gods. Nowhere else, however, and I walked several miles, were birds to be found, save here and there a solitary crow, and the conclusion is, that such a season drives off rather than attracts certain species, while others having no incentive to migrate, have not wandered this far south. I do not know what the result of observation in general has been, but certainly over my own rambling ground birds have been noticeably scarce. Flowers out of season are no compensation for the losses that a thoroughly open winter brings upon us; the more so, if an open winter lessens the number of our birds.