As we walk through the October woods a covey of ruffed grouse springs up before us, overhead a flock of robins dashes by, and the birds scatter to feed among the wild grapes. The short round wings of the grouse whirr noisily, while the quick wing beats of the robins make little sound. Both are suited to their uses. The robin may travel league upon league to the south, while the grouse will not go far except to find new bud or berry pastures. His wings, as we have noticed before, are fitted rather for sudden emergencies, to bound up before the teeth of the fox close upon him, to dodge into close cover when the nose of the hound almost touches his trembling body. When he scrambled out of his shell last May he at once began to run about and to try his tiny wings, and little by little he taught himself to fly. But in the efforts he got many a tumble and broke or lost many a feather. Nature, however, has foreseen this, and to her grouse children she gives several changes of wing feathers to practise with, before the last strong winter quills come in. How different it is with the robin. Naked and helpless he comes from his blue shell, and only one set of wing quills falls to his share, so it behooves him to be careful indeed of these. He remains in the nest until they are strong enough to bear him up, and his first attempts are carefully supervised by his anxious parents. And so the glimpse we had in the October woods of the two pair of wings held more of interest than we at first thought. In many parts of the country, about October fifteenth the crows begin to flock back and forth to and from their winter roosts. In some years it is the twelfth, or again the seventeenth, but the constancy of the mean date is remarkable. Many of our winter visitants have already slipped into our fields and woods and taken the places of some of the earlier southern migrants; but the daily passing of the birds which delay their journey until fairly pinched by the lack of food at the first frosts extends well into November. It is not until the foliage on the trees and bushes becomes threadbare and the last migrants have flown, that our northern visitors begin to take a prominent place in our avifauna. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom friend of the maturing sun; Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-- While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river-sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.