It is true that if one’s feelings are out of tune, there may be a distorted vision, but not so to-day. The world was askew, and has been since the first frost, for whoever knew the crows to be silent—positively silent, as compared with crows—on a crisp, frosty morning? There were forty, by count, that flew over the maple, and only one gave tongue. Here I may be charged with fancy, but that one crow gave out no ringing _caw_, that is music to him who loves the country. It was rather a fretful, long-drawn _pshaw!_ and fittingly voiced the surroundings. A winter in the tropics may be very delightful, but an “open” winter in New Jersey is an utter abomination. A Foggy Morning. We know too little of the world except when bathed in sunshine. Not that I recognize any advantage in groping in darkness—this is too like dogmatizing on a theory; but between the obscurity of night and brilliancy of the day there are happy mediums, too commonly neglected. I have lately been wandering through a thick fog. Not a metaphysical, but a material one; nor was it gloomy. The fog was thick, yet through it streamed the level rays of the rising sun, gilding the topmost twigs of the forest trees, roofing with gold a trackless wild beneath. So changed for an hour or more was every long-familiar scene that, as I wandered, I was a stranger in a strange land. The late John Cassin, the ornithologist, has left on record how a vast multitude of crows tarried for some time in Independence Square, Philadelphia, having, after leaving their roosting grounds, lost their reckoning in a dense fog. He tells us how the masses obeyed a few leaders, and how methodically they all departed, led by their appointed scouts. It was an incident that thrilled him more than all else that he had witnessed; and none knew our birds in their homes better than he.